Amorous Spider-Man 2: Symkaria
by Kazakh Doom
Summary: In 1870, Turkish nationalism is spreading across the globe like a parasite. For Peter, the now-retired Spider-Man, it's hardly personal...until the Sultan's Syndicate dares invade his life in Queens.
1. Chapter 1

These are the Caucasus Mountains. On their southern slopes, some Turks are plotting a horrible atrocity.

Somewhere in Turkish territory, three Armenians are being forced into a small space. The door closes behind them. It's locked from the outside. It's dark where they are.

They see a light. Amused, they drift towards it...

Machine guns go off, from everywhere inside the room. All falls silent.

A trap door falls from a funnel-shaped elevated structure. Three bloody corpses fall from it. They land on a pile of dead Armenians who look just like them...with a few differences in DNA. Up above, the funnel-shaped elevated structure bears a symbol of Turkic supremacy.

Meanwhile, this is St. Petersberg. At the Winter Palace, the Tsar receives a VERY rich guest from a foreign country.

As usual, Tsar Alexander II rejects Ms. Sablinova's bid, for a program that'll protect many of Russia's less-loved subjects from over-expanding Turkic supremacists. He cares about the little guys just as much as any benevolent dictator; but as usual, the empire's cheaper expenses take priority over their more costly ones; and from his experience, as well as anyone else's, Ms. Sablinova is NO low-ruble chick.

Outraged, Ms. Sablinova leaves St. Petersburg in a prolonged rage...again. She takes a train back to her company's main building, in Sweet Home Symkaria.

A few days later, she's preparing herself for a date. She'll never understand how gorgeous she is to some men. Again, she's no low-ruble girl. Some would daresay she stopped being a girl on the day she became obsessed with perfection.

She takes a train to Latveria, while wearing a fur coat and hat. Men don't stop staring at her the whole way.

In Latveria, she has her date with the country's tsar: Victor von Doom. He keeps to himself most of the time, and only flirts with women when he likes his chances...and he seldom does. He has more relatives than he wants, and Silvija suspects that he might be a microphile. She suspects she's one of the few women he's ever known who has.

They meet one another in a dimly-lit parlor. Androids, of Victor I's creation, roll and walk around, waiting on and serving them. Victor's wine is very potent. It should be; Victor takes pride in aging his wine in time-controlling casks. To Victor, the wine is only in the cask for less than five years. Meanwhile, inside the cask, the year is 802701...like in H.G. Wells's _the Time Machine_.

"I didn't know wine could age that long before turning into dust," Silvija protests, sipping her wine MUCH slowly than before, now that she knows its...VERY repressed history.

"It can't," Victor admits. "That was just an exaggeration, and a coy attempt to flirt with you. Whatever the case, the wine is just as much ahead of our cheap peers' time as your Wild Pack is, Silvija."

"Even if it was coy," Silvija lets him know, "it would've worked. It turns out H.G. Wells is an inspiration to me."

"Yeah, well, don't invest too much in his enterprise. No doubt, the next breakthrough in science fiction is going to make his precious _Time Machine_ look like a child's drawing...or worse yet, Napoleon III's strategy for winning the war his country has just started with Prussia."

"Greedy Frenchmen," Silvija pouts. "You'd think that romantic men who could have all the wine and luxuries they ever wanted wouldn't waste their time trying to annex cheap societies that make theirs look like Mt. Olympus."

"Or the Eloi," Victor says, mimicking a smile. "_Time Machine_ reference," he says more softly, mimicking an offside in a play, "in case you're not as on-fire about Wells as you bluff to be."

"Nonsense! I only bluff when I feel threatened. And no offense, but your vodka brewery here is a relic, in contrast to some of the finer works in my penthouse. I've just hired a man named Otis to build this really clever and fancy means, that will allow me to get from the floor of my building to the penthouse without having to waste the best of my body-building energy on some strenuous stairwell..."

"We're here to talk about what we're passionate about, aren't we? How'd your meeting with dear Father Russia go?"

She sighs. "He is hardly dear...to me, or to some cheap serf. And he rejected me again, thanks for asking. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he WANTS my poor Armenian kin to feel inferior to him."

"That's...the name of the game of autocracy, Dear Madame. And need I not remind you that you don't have a single Armenian in your pedigree?"

She stares at him. "I am Slav. We both Indo-Aryan! We both owe the primitive white man who created us, as do you!" She stares at him. "Your people aren't Uralic, are they?"

"Ah," Victor muses. "Aryans; of course. I guess that explains why I never hear you defending Chechens or Georgians half as much. And I thought you were better than family."

"I thought you were a Nazi at heart. Was I wrong?"

He shrugs. "So what if you are? All of the best Nazis couldn't get what they truly desired without betraying their relatives. One day I might too."

"You're a smart man, Victor. You're smarter than me, for sure. You'll find a way around that. Tsar Alexander rules the world; small countries like us need each other in times like these more than others."

Victor chuckles. "Something tells me there'll always be a hedgemony for us to worry about. Russia, Turkey, Persia, Mongolia," he stares at her. "Me, you..."

"I am a businesswoman, not a tsaritsa. I am no psychic, but I assure you that Symkaria will never rule Eurasia...or the world."

"Such a shame. You'd be a more-loved empress than I'd be."

She stares at him, with nice blue eyes. "Do you think that?"

Victor smiles, and raises his vodka glass. "I'm the smartest man on the whole damn planet. I don't think anything. I KNOW."


	2. Chapter 2

Peter couldn't be happier in his relationship with Morgan. With her, he feels like the peasant boy who won the princess's heart.

She still doesn't know he used to be Spider-Man. With luck, she'll never have to find out.

The latest issue of the Daily Bugle lies on Ms. Potts's coffee table. The headline says Spider-Man's back. Peter knows it's not him. He still hasn't met who it is...but ever since confessing his feelings to Morgan, he hasn't really cared.

Peter and Morgan lie on her bed. There's space between them. And the bed is made. They stare at each other. He stares at more than just her eyes. She caresses his arms...as if she didn't know Flash Thompson has bigger arms than his.

She has to go to the bathroom. She leaves. Peter waits. The weather outside her open window sure feels good.

Peter still remembers when he used to have sex fantasies of climbing a ladder up to that window. Now, it's SUCH a relief he can get better than that from her.

Ms. Potts eases her way in. She's underdressed, in white. Peter scrambles to cover his groin up with something. He isn't ready for Ms. Potts to see his hardened cock.

"You really are a miracle worker, Peter," she says, inadvertently with her hands on her hips. "Her obsession with you is like nothing I've seen."

Peter sneaks glances between her legs. He still remembers when he was like a bug, swinging between them...

"I assure you, Ms. Potts," Peter stammers to insist, "I'm just trying to be a good friend to her."

"You're more than that; believe me." She flaps her straight blonde hair. "Before you called on her, I couldn't get her to care about anything other than one thing: the fact that her father didn't appoint her to become Iron Man in his will. Now all she cares about is you."

"Wow. It's," Peter's having a hard time keeping his hardened cock concealed, "flattering to hear that."

Ms. Potts smiles. "Just don't stop coming over. She needs you. And uh," she lowers her voice, "if I were you, I wouldn't talk about Iron Man around her, OR her father...ever."

"Didn't she love him?"

"She did, but... She knows her father was Iron Man. And he's dead. The less she sees or thinks of Iron Man, the better."

"Of course. No need to dwell on a memory," Peter swallows hard, "longer than it's worth, right?"

"I wouldn't know about that. But Tony wouldn't want anyone to be sad. And I get sad whenever my daughter wants to become Iron Man. So, if you please?"

"Of course. Mr. Stark and Iron Man are both as dead as your daughter's misery."

She smiles. "I'm happy to hear that." She flaps her hair. "I'm glad he found you. You're so sweet." With that, she leaves him.

Peter pants. If only Ms. Potts knew what Peter's done... If only Morgan knew... There's SO much Peter's going to have to tell both of them, that they won't want to hear, if Peter's attachment to Morgan becomes marital...


	3. Chapter 3

Throughout the city, through the canyons of high-rises and crane loads/arms, Spider-Man swings. There's a certain ebony to his costume that wasn't there before. He swings, spins webs, dodges bullets, and saves people. With his webbing, he leaves crooks tied to lampposts, for the cops to collect.

At the police stations, Lt. Stacy isn't sure he enjoys filing the paperwork for the crooks his men pick up, after they find them "webbed down." But then May Reilly calls him to check on him, and for as long as it lasts, he smiles, loses himself, and changes his mind...

As for a certain black cop under his command, Officer Jefferson Morales, he takes almost NO pride in cutting loose crooks Spider-Man apprehends with his webbing. He may have to work for his whole career, but one day, he WILL stop Spider-Man, and he WILL make sure Spider-Man pays for EVERYTHING he's done to obstruct justice...

High above, Spider-Man swings to the top of a building. Perched between two wary gargoyles, he stares down upon the Big Apple, through his mask.

He takes off his mask; it's getting hot. The face of Miles Morales gawks down at the city, in awe. He never thought he'd cross paths with the honor of replacing one of his childhood heroes. But so far, it's been a blast.

He, like everyone else, is still sad the original Spider-Man is dead. But at whatever cost, Miles is committed to making sure his predecessor did not die in vain.


	4. Chapter 4

This is Betty Brant, of the _Daily Bugle_. She's Peter's new boss.

Or rather, she'll be Peter's boss one day. But if only she'd finish reading Peter's resume faster...

Peter doesn't know why she's taking so long. There's barely anything to read. He's still a minor. Although yes, when it comes to building a resume, it helps to be raised in a single-parent flat in the cheaper part of the Big Apple.

Brant is gorgeous. She wears black suits to work, and wears her hair in a black bob. She loves mascara. Her pumps are the color of obsidian.

Around her office, her interior decor stays true to tradition. She's got several black-and-white photographs hanging from her walls.

"Your resume is breathtaking, Mr. Parker," she says, closing it, and scooting it across her desk, back towards him. "But, absolutely NO disrespect intended, you're too young for me to hire."

She flaps her bob, and giggles. Peter feels good...despite not getting the job.

"But as long as you're willing, you can do some volunteer work. You can take pictures, but," she adjusts her top, "you won't get paid."

"That's fine. What do you have in mind?"

She stands. With balance, she moves around her desk. She makes sure Peter can see her ass. She glides over to a board on the wall, where she keeps memos posted.

"Certain religious groups throughout the city are getting paranoid, because their native kin in Eurasia are being oppressed by the Ottoman Turks. I know this is a sensitive topic, but," she flaps her hair, and puts her hands together, nails up, in front of her face, "will you take these photos, for," she swallows, "the _Bugle?_"

"Of course," Peter says, smiling. "It's an honor to be a part of the team."

"Yes...it will be." She scurries back to her desk, and sits. She seems stressed. She flaps her hair and loosens her top a lot.

"Just...how close do you want me to get to these people? From what I've heard, they're not really..."

"Use your best judgement. Don't get closer than what feels safe. Although," she sits on the front of her desk, and swings her bare legs, where Peter's got a great view of them. "I must warn you that if you're going to be a press photographer, you've got to be willing to," she raises one of her legs, and wiggles it for Peter, "take risks. I mean you don't HAVE to. It's just that," she undoes the top button on her blouse, "that's how the big men in this business advance themselves."

"And...you think I can be a big man?"

She looks down on him, with a coy smile. "You are." She winks. "I can tell."

Peter gapes. "Okay. I'll take risks. I won't respect their space at all. I'll trespass their worship services, and photograph their priests' balls. And if they throw me out, I'll just go back and get more."

Ms. Brant smiles. "THAT'S a good photographer." She messes up Peter's hair. "I know I can count on you."

She stays where she is. Peter feels nervous...and small.

"So Peter...you have a girlfriend. How serious are you about her?"

"Honestly," Peter surveys Ms. Brant's long and tempting legs, "I don't think I'm ever sure."

Ms. Brant smiles. Peter may just be a herring, but as far as catches go, his bright red scales make him the most distracting fish in the sea.


	5. Chapter 5

This is a building for Silver Sable USA. It's not as busy as Silver Sable HQ, but some really scary things have been known to come from it.

This is its rooftop. It seems vulnerable.

Something small flies around in circles over the roof. A small boomerang sticks itself into the lock that keeps the entrance to the roof secure. The whooshing noises stop. Up and down the boomerang, lights flash.

The lock unlocks itself, and the door swings open. Across the roof, a puddle of water appears to move towards the open door...and the door isn't even downhill from it...

Across town, this is the Kurdish Shiite Mosque. (It's...not a very good name, is it?)

Peter attends, covered from head to toe. He tries not to talk to anyone. When he has to, he has KAREN speak for him. He's pretending to be a little Muslim girl.

This feels extreme, Peter knows. But then, Ms. Brant DID tell him to take risks...

He sits in a room, with a bunch of other robed and masked girls. For Peter, this is new. He had no idea Kurdish girls were so...human. He doesn't know why they can't just unmask and de-robe themselves, and start living like Americans.

Their families didn't immigrate to remember how much the Ottoman sultan oppressed them, after all...

The girls talk about a variety of things. They don't seem to notice the robotic indifference of what KAREN adds to the discussions.

From inside the front of his robes, Peter takes pictures. The camera uses a flash that isn't visible to human eyes.

The girls don't talk about the Ottoman oppression of Kurds overseas. They're probably too young (or too NAIVE, as far as Peter's concerned) to understand such concepts. But they sure seem to love living the American dream. If only they could do it outside these robes and masks...

On his exfiltration, Peter runs into a girl. She calls herself Kamala Khan. She seems smart. They sit in the mosque, with their shoes off, and have an intelligent conversation.

Or rather, Kamala has an intelligent conversation with KAREN, not knowing that Peter's neither female nor Kurdish. KAREN's Ottoman Kurdish accent is spot-on...

Peter won't get the photos he needs hanging out with this mosque's children. He needs to move among the adults freely...

He revisits his lab, beneath Ms. Reilly's block of flats. Ms. Reilly doesn't know about it; nor does her landlord. She also doesn't know her ex-nephew's the former Spider-Man. Peter would love to keep it that way.

Peter also doesn't want her to know her ex-nephew has a crush on her. Now is even less the time to talk about it; from what Peter's heard, she's STILL dating that annoying lieutenant from the precinct...

Alright; time to get started. Peter's built a fish tank in the corner. It's inspired by what Mystria and the Reality Stone did to him on the Frontier. Half of Peter admits he's been looking forward to a new need for this.

Fully dressed in his suit, he climbs into the tank, and shuts himself in. From there, the tank does the rest of its job.

The following Friday, the Kurds have Mosque. They gather in an amphitheater, around a big black cube, and worship their Allah.

Kamala's in her white robe. During the music, she raises her hands, and sings along in soprano.

Like a mite in her hood, Peter keeps a low profile. Once again, he's a thousandth of his normal size.

For the time being, Peter's in nothing but his Captain Marvel briefs. With luck, Kamala can't see him. He loves the feel of her robes against his bare skin. He's tempted to try lying against her mask, as she's breathing in it, with his bare skin...

One way or another, he's going to capture a classic moment on film. All he's got to do is wait for the imam to start preaching about his visions of their poor helpless kin in Ottoman Kurdistan, struggling for their lives to stand up to the Turks' oppression of its non-Turkic colonies.

That's a lot, Peter knows. He just asked KAREN about all of this last night.


	6. Chapter 6

Silver Sable International has built an arena. In it, Silvija Sablinova plans to test what she hopes will become the summit of her success.

With the vomitoriums, the portcullises rise. From the shadows within, some macabre sights venture into the arena.

They're Turkish women. They're naked. They're exposed to an infidel world. And they're surrounded by corporate greed; Ms. Sablinova's greed.

From up high, Victor von Doom watches. An android, his facial expression is always impossible to decipher.

"This seems extreme," he admits. "Perhaps we should use sable antelopes as test subjects?"

Near him, Ms. Sablinova finishes plugging in everything. She gives Victor a stony look.

"Do not disrespect me, Victor. Sables are not test subjects; they are fragile...like me."

"Fragile?! So says the pot who's about to test the kettle!"

Boldly, Ms. Sablinova stands. She marches over to Victor, and looks him in the...high-tech video sensors.

"These women," she sneers, "were married to Ottoman lords! They've joined the enemy! They've sided with the devils who've slaughtered my fellow Aryans in droves like rats! Ergo, they are not kettles! They are not pots! They are porcelain toilets, and whether you'd accept it or not, Dr. Doom, they are as white as the snow in that scary forest into which one of your wicked consorts once banished Snow White!" She pauses. "Judge me if you will. But this WILL be their final judgment. And the Wild Pack won't test itself; they are fully robotic."

With that, she returns to her work. Victor just stands there, in a green robe, like the Tin Man in _the Wizard of Oz_...which, sadly, won't get published for another three decades.

"I still think you should've turned a bunch of wolves into cyborgs. Cyborg wolves are VERY under-utilized in villainy."

"I am not a villainess," Ms. Sablinova insists. "I am a philanthropist with an unstable soul."

She pushes a lever. In the arena, the other portcullises open. The Turkish women and children dread what follows. They should.

Robotic wolves run out of the vomitoriums, and spring into action. The women scream and run. All around the arenas, the chases are on. These robotic wolves stand five times taller than their tallest do.

From a safe place, Ms. Sablinova crosses her arms, and smiles. It is, after all, what a Turkish lord would do to her and Victor.

In no time, the Wild Pack has reduced the Turkish swarm to blood and bones. Flies have already infested the arena. No problem; with the simple flip of a switch, Ms. Sablinova turns on a network of lasers, which precisely kill all the flies with VERY accurate aim. She then commands the Wild Pack to return to its Lair; which they do.

Ms. Sablinova seals the arena shut, and orders its cleaning. She and Victor watch, for a while, as it cleans itself.

Victor yawns. "How about some lunch?"

"No lunch will ever sate my hunger," Ms. Sablinova grumbles, "like Sultan Abdülaziz's head in a jar of vinegar will."


	7. Chapter 7

All around, the Kurdish Muslims stop singing. Their imam assumes the spotlight, and delivers the weekly message...as if praying five times a day wasn't already too much for any human.

Like a mite, Peter is still hanging from Kamala's hood. He puts his suit back on, spins a chute, and ascends up into the mosque.

Below, Kamala looks around, as if she heard him. But she doesn't see him, so he re-delivers her attention to the imam.

Once high enough up, Spider-Man I releases the web-chute, and uses his wingsuit to glide around in circles in the mosque. He's so small, none of the Muslims notice him.

All around, Spider-Man I's fleet of aerial cameras fly in. They're cloaked; no one notices them. On KAREN's command, they photograph certain parts of the service. Back at Spider-Man I's lab, the photos are printed on a human-size printer.

With relief, Spider-Man I lands back in Kamala's robe. With a certain story-writing software of KAREN's, Peter speaks, each time he has a public thought about what's going on here. Karen takes his thoughts down, word-for-word. At some point, Peter will have KAREN type it up, via a genuine 1870 typewriter.

The imam speaks with passion. He speaks in Kurdish...

Here, a vision of Stan Lee appears within the fourth wall. He's wearing sunglasses.

"Now, some of you who're reading this," he says, "MIGHT not know how to speak 1870 Kurdish. So allow us to translate:"

Stan Lee's apparition vanishes. As a result, the imam starts speaking English.

He preaches about how much their Kurdish kin are being oppressed in the Ottoman Empire. He preaches that the Turkish Empire has been hijacked by a heathen race who doesn't know Allah like the Kurds do. Everywhere, all over the Sultan's dominion, non-Turkic races are being persecuted-not for their religion, but for what breeding stock they hail from. In times like these, all Islamic nations; Kurds, Turks, and the like; must band together, and rise up against this race of unfair dominators who dare adopt children, call them their own, and then whirl around and stab them in the backs with the devious daggers of prejudice...

Tucked safely inside Kamala's robe, Peter yawns. He's thankful he and his ex-aunt have never been victims of Ottoman oppression.

And they would be. May's a Reilly, and Peter's a Parker; neither one of them is Turkish or Turkic.

It's time for the congregation to worship Allah, and sing a song. The conductor trades places with the imam, and the singers at mosque prepare to join each other in a recitation of "Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho."

Yes, I know; the Muslims don't believe in Jesus, but they DO believe in Joshua. And Caleb. And Moses. And Judah...which sucks.

The men start out singing rapidly. And then, after two repeated lines, the women sing their part just as rapidly.

_Joshua fit the battle, the Battle of Jericho _

_Joshua fit the battle, the Battle of Jericho _

_Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho _

_(The battle, Joshua...) _

_Jericho _

_(The battle, Joshua...) _

_Jericho _

_(The battle, Joshua...the battle, Joshua...)_

_Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho _

_And the walls come a'tumblin' down _

_Joshua fit the battle, the Battle of Jericho _

_Joshua fit the battle, the Battle of Jericho_

As monotonous as these Muslim sermons are, Peter must confess that this song isn't bad. But then, it's not that he hasn't heard it before. Some time during his job on the ever-contracting Frontier, he eavesdropped on a Mormon Sunday service. They sang this song too...

Outside the mosque, sinister visitors assemble. A puddle of water rises from a culvert, and creeps towards the mosque entrance.

Down the street, a patrol cop walks a beat. In a blur of motion, he vanishes. He reappears in Manhattan. He looks around, confused and scared...

A cyborg climbs atop a lamppost. His left arm is a prosthetic, and armed with a heavy and powerful stun weapon. It flickers as he waits. He grins menacingly as he waits...

On the sidewalk, an Aussie page happily dances to the music, coming from inside the mosque. People pass him. They think he's weird. He keeps dancing.

At long last, he gets sick and tired of his act. He pulls a boomerang from his belt, and throws it around the mosque. It circles the entire mosque before coming back to him. He throws it around the mosque, in the same direction, six times...

The blur of motion also circles the mosque six times-in the opposite direction. At that point, the boomerang-thrower switches arms, and throws a different, relatively powered boomerang. It circles the mosque seven times without coming back. The speedster, too, switches directions, and runs around the mosque seven times, opposite the boomerang.

Inside, the Kurds are finishing the hymn. Peter puts on his suit, and prepares to leave...

_Joshua! Battle! _

_He fought the battle! Battle! _

_He fought the battle! Battle! _

_The walls come, _

_A tumblin' down... _

Those sopranos are really rocking it...

_Joshua! Battle! _

_He fought the battle! Battle! _

_He fought the battle! Battle! _

_And the walls, come, tumblin'... _

_DOWN! _

They really drag out the song's ending. The basses enjoy sliding that last lyric.

At long last, Spider-Man can leave. He prepares to weave a silken chute...

Behind the imam, the mosque wall DOES come a'tumblin down. But sadly for them, it's not Joshua, or Caleb, or Israel who brings it down.

The Muslim women scream. Some of their robes fall off. They run for the exit. Alas, it's soon cut off by a certain speedster and shocking cyborg...

A giant mecha lumbers through the new hole in the mosque wall. It looks like a rhinoceros. It lumbers in on four legs, and stands on two. He turns here, and he turns there. Via his targeting software, he sees a lot of frightened Kurdish-Americans. For them, there may be no cats in America-or dogs-but there's sure an dangerous rhino mecha with a naive pilot...

This looks bad. Spider-Man can't resize himself back to normal...but as long as he's fought bigger villains with less muscle, he must make an effort to protect these Kurds...


	8. Chapter 8

First, Speed Demon has a ball. In a flash, he runs up behind the imam, and runs his arm through his chest, impaling him.

All around, the Muslims gasp. The imam doesn't resist, has he breathes his last breath, and the light leaves his eyes.

Inside Rhino, his pilot chuckles. His voice is a Turkic/Slavic bastard...as is his being.

Shocker sneaks up behind Kamala's mother, and sticks her in the ass with his electrified prosthetic. She screams in shock. He laughs, and spontaneously strikes another Kurdish woman in the ass. Like a gnat gliding through the air, Peter can't tell if they're enjoying this...

Boomerang throws one of his boomerangs. A man ducks to avoid it. It comes back around, and impales him in the chest. He gasps, and coughs blood, before falling over.

"Please don't hurt us," a man shouts. "What do you want?!"

"We want a Turkish planet," Hydro-Man says, erecting many tentacles made of water. "And you're not Turkish."

He sticks his tentacles down several peoples' throats, and drowns them. Some of them cough up parts of him as they die.

At the size of a gnat, Spider-Man I imagines a solution, with KAREN's help. He glides around, improvising it.

Rhino raises his mecha's foot, and uses it to squash a Kurdish boy like a bug. The crowd gasps as he does.

"Kurds," Rhino grumbles. "Their men grow too slow."

Speed Demon chuckles. "Our empire is rising. You stand in our way. So," he accelerates his body, "you will all forgive us when we slaughter you all in the name of Turkey, the Sultan, and Turkish patriotism!"

Speed Demon accelerates himself; this is a mistake. Spider-Man I has foreseen this.

Shocker involuntarily hits Hydro-Man with his prosthetic. Hydro-Man becomes electrified, and sends tentacles of power all over the room. One of them hits Rhino in the head. Rhino moans, and stomps about the place.

As Rhino stomps, he inadvertently builds many holes in the walls. Through these, the Kurds flee and escape.

Boomerang prepares to throw a boomerang. Rhino runs into him, and he throws it too early. Speed Demon runs, and tries to seal off the Kurds' escape. The boomerang lands right where Spider-Man I means for it to; it impales Speed Demon through the chest.

Speed Demon groans, and pulls the boomerang out. It won't take him long to heal.

Spider-Man II broadsides him, and wraps him in a net of webs. He hits him in the nose with some gas-webbing, which turns into a gas near his airway, and causes him to pass out.

All around, the Sultan Syndicate flees. Neither Spider-Man can tell if they plan to return for their captured teammate.

"Wow," Spider-Man II muses, looking around. "What happened here?"

New York's finest arrive, and take Speed Demon away. They don't realize how much danger they're putting themselves in by taking him.

Thankfully, they may not have to find out. There might be a certain someone in Symkaria, or worse yet, OsCorp, who'd LOVE to have Speed Demon extradited into their care...


	9. Chapter 9

OsCorp gets to Speed Demon first, of course. They imprison him in a chamber, which suppresses his powers.

Norma Osborn, the too-young-and-cute-too-be-true CEO of OsCorp, keeps tabs on his condition. He doesn't seem to intimidated by his circumstances. Then again, he could be bluffing. Norma's dated guys like him before, and thus expects him to.

Speed Demon races around the chamber. He can't phase through its walls. He can't shatter the walls. No amount of lightning he can generate can destroy the walls.

Norma watches him, for hours. She admires his spirit...although she isn't entirely surprised by it.

"I would've given up by now," she admits. "He's cute...even if he is a Turkish imperialist who doesn't know his place in Big Apple politics." She shrugs. "Not that I'm criticizing him. I doubt New York would miss the Kurds if they all vanished into thin air. But then their families would, and hence, the cycle of natural helplessness continues."

She watches him. He can't stop being excited.

"I could let him go," she admits. "But then...how would I learn about his speed? That speed looks like it's hard to come by. I don't mean to suggest how, but...it _could_ hold the key to inventing the electric light bulb before some crazy and stubborn inventor in New Jersey stumbles upon, shall we say, bamboo fibers..."

Speed Demon keeps running around in his jar. Norma can't help but think of a fly as she watches him...


	10. Chapter 10

In her jeweled hands, Ms. Brant holds Peter's latest gift to her: a big brown envelope addressed to her...at the Daily Bugle. She can't wait to open it, of course.

She's tempted to smell it, to see if he's figured out she likes scented envelopes... But she decides against it, because, after all, Peter's young, and shouldn't be expected to understand older women as she knows she longs to be...

Someone interrupts her. In a hurry, she stuffs Peter's envelope in a drawer, and slams it.

It's Kamala. Peter's happy to see that she survived the attack on her family's mosque. Ms. Brant probably would be too...if she knew who she was. But for the sake of men, it'd probably be best if they didn't know who each other was for just a while longer...

With luck, they'll never see the same men. And yet, how often does luck really maintain perfect balance between men and women?

Kamala thanks Ms. Brant for making the community aware of the physical hardships her people have just suffered. With luck, neighborhood watches all over New York are constantly on the manhunt for those horrible superpowered Turkish patriots who would dare attack Kurdish immigrants on Union soil.

Ms. Brant admits that she's heard rumors that one of them didn't get away. Alas, most of the _Bugle_'s reporters have lost track of his 20.

"I'm sure he'll turn up," Kamala says optimistically. "He was the speedster. Speedsters NEVER maintain their cover. They're just too nervous."

"Ooh, really?" Ms. Brant loosens her top, at the thought of how sexy male speedsters are...even if Speed Demon is a villain. "I've...never noticed."

At the size of a mite, Peter perches atop the top button of Ms. Brant's blouse. He's compelled to swing to her collar when her humongous fingers loosen his former perch. Her nails are painted black. To Peter, they're the size of tennis courts.

Kamala apologizes for bothering Ms. Brant, and thanks her once again. They shake hands, and Kamala leaves.

At long last; alone in Ms. Brant's presence. Her buttons are huge when Peter's this small. And they're not her only assets that are...

She reads a letter from J. Jonah Jameson. It seems he's upset with the way Ms. Brant's been running the _Bugle_ in his absence. If Peter knew Jameson, that wouldn't surprise him. In fact, no one who works here would be surprised...

Ms. Brant scoffs, wads up the letter, and tosses it. If Jameson wants the _Bugle_ back, he's going to have to go through her...as well as many employees here who don't miss him.

She gets another letter. It's from her ex-husband, Nathaniel Leeds. She reads it. She scoffs, and unites his letter with Jameson's, in her office's wastebasket.

At long last, Peter gets to spend some HIGH-quality time with his will-be boss. He can hardly wait...


	11. Chapter 11

This is Manhattan. And these are some of the nicest homes in the borough.

A coach strolls up to one. It stops. The door opens. A pair of bare legs, clad in heels, alights the coach.

At a thousandth his size, and perching on her purse, Peter gazes, in awe, at Ms. Brant's nice home. She may be young...but hot damn if she can't afford such a nice house. It makes Peter feel small... But then, he IS small, isn't he?

Ms. Brant pays the coach a generous tip...as she usually does. Clicking against the pavement as she goes along, she ascends the front steps to her home.

She's unaware of Peter's accompaniment of her. If she knew about it, she'd pay Peter a lot more than he expects her to...

Safe inside, she takes off her coat. With it off, her shoulders and boobs vent. She leaves her heels at the door. She leaves her purse on the coffee table.

Peter shoots some webs, and fixes herself to the back of her skirt. He swings from her skirt hem, and rides his will-be boss up to her sacred space.

Upstairs, she undresses. Peter quickly ascends her ass moments before her skirt hits the floor. Relieved, he hangs from the back strap of her panties. Alas, she sheds THOSE too.

In midair, he falls into his suit, and glides through the air, right back to her. She's about to shut herself inside her own bathroom...

Peter makes it in with her, by mere nths. He dives as low as he can, to avoid being spotted. He takes cover, in a cubby hole behind the counter, and prays for luck. He thinks she's seen him...

Behind him, she creeps towards the counter. She's huge. She's like a titaness. This is NOT how Peter wanted his first time with his will-be boss to go...

She lowers her head, and looks around where she thinks Peter landed. She wipes the place where he's hiding, with her finger...

Inside, her finger thumps, and causes a lot of suction and noise. Peter tries to tolerate it. Alas, his spider sense amplifies all noise, sights, and textures, and nearly numbs him. As fervently as she's going at it, he's lucky the counter doesn't cave in on him...

Behind Ms. Brant, a tiny spider lands on her behind. It bites her.

Ms. Brant curses, while reacting. She shows the mirror her own ass, and slaps it for herself. She brings her hand to her face, and studies it. She smiles; the dead spider looks insignificant, against the palm of her huge hand.

Inside her counter, Peter watches from afar. The experience reminds him of how much danger he's in, knowing that he could've fought that spider in a fair fight if Ms. Brant hadn't killed it first...

At peace at last, Ms. Brant smiles, admires her boobs and waistline in the mirror, wanders over to the shower, and starts the water. From behind, Peter ogles her ass, as she's bent over...

Alas, she slips into the shower stall, and closes the translucent pane behind her. She's sealed inside. She turns on the water, and indulges herself in a hot waterfall. Peter can see her titaness figure through the transparent glass.

He can't see every detail of her. But he can see enough of her to sexually inspire.

Below, he's getting hard. He's falling for his titaness will-be boss...


	12. Chapter 12

This is the Rhine River. It is, more or less, the front of a VERY intense war between the Second French Empire, and a loose confederation of German monarchies that is, for the time being, led by Prussia.

North down the river, high-tech German warships creep. They're all partly-submerged. On their sides, they bear the Prussian black cross. It seems Prussia is gaining some influence in German society's ranks...

In the shrubs and forests on both banks, French imperial troops hide, and wait for the signal to volley. Their uniforms are much more high-quality than the Germans'. By the end of the war, that won't remain true. Their precious emperor, Napoleon III, had better enjoy his golden days as France's second emperor for as long as they last...

The French use lever-action rifles as their service rifle. This repeating magnificence in gunsmithery would've seen more golden days in the American Civil War...if only that war had lasted a few years longer. And the French are sure that many Americans are glad it didn't. But for the time being, Napoleon III needs to show those stateless German ruffians who's boss...

Below the weather decks of the Prussian warships, many German sailors, dressed in shabby clothing, stand in large groups, listening to their Prussian commanding officers make inspiring speeches. Their captains make many references to Norse myth; Njoror, their sea god, seems to be a common inspiration in this particular situation. Yes, these speeches will get Germany through many decades as a unified society...and about two decades after that, it'll also inspire them to charge towards their second doom, under the command of a crazed ex-convict who dares proclaim the Aryan race superior to all of Earth's others...

On the warship's forecastles, poop decks, and amidships, trap doors open. They do a very robotic job of descending somewhat beneath the deck, and sliding, very slowly, under one side...

From these hatchways, big guns surface. Some are Gatling guns. Some are revolving cannons. Some are heavy mortars.

One nth at a time, they rotate, and adjust their own angles. On the banks, the French guerillas don't know what to expect...

On command, the Prussian river fleet gives the French a volley. All over the banks, cannonballs and machine gun rounds fly.

French guerillas fly from their hideouts, screaming like women. Some are on fire. Some land in the river...where their fires still burn. Many try to make a stand...but can't reload their lever-action rifles in time before the German machine guns mow them down like blades of grass, spewing French blood as they go along.

The French have their own artillery, far from the river. Few get to it before getting cut down. The ones who do get a few shells off. Alas, the Germans only lose a few warships in this battle.

Prussia is on its way to victory. And Germany is on its way to unification, and the federation of its Second Reich, with a kaiser on its will-be Prussian throne...

Over here, this is Paris. In 1870, the Tuileries Palace still stands. Inside, Napoleon III lives the high life...as his relatively more famous, and infamous, grandfather did decades before. He'd better enjoy himself; in less than a year, this palace will be a pile of charred rubble.

In the streets, the French militias boldly protests the Second Empire. They long to see France restored, once again, into a republic...where the proletariat, and not the nobles, make all the hard decisions for the French nation...

From a window in a tall building, François Paul Jules Grévy, now over sixty years old, looks down upon the marching militias. In his heart, he will always be a monarchist. Alas, he's seen the monarchy abused many times in his life; he himself was born during the Napoleonic Wars. As much as he hesitates to sacrifice his own childhood dreams, he MUST support the people's bid for a republic.

He's right to do so. He's destined to have an endangered species of zebra named after him.

As Mr. Grévy watches the fashionable monotony excite below, one of his younger relatives slithers into the room he's in. He's holding a lever-action rifle, and seems excited.

Zéphyrin Grévy, like his older relative once did, dreams of the French monarchy. He anticipates Napoleon III proving its might as a result of this war with the stateless Germans. The French will crush them under cannon fire, and embarrass them like mice under a leopard's paws, just as Napoleon III's grandfather did many decades before. This will be the year that all Frenchfolk who've ever doubted the majesty of the French monarchy will see their precious royal dream restored to its glory, back when a certain lovely Scotswoman sat on the throne next to the king of France...

Zéphyrin looks over his apathetic older relative's shoulder, at the marching militia. He sighs, and pulls the lever on his rifle out and in.

Jules fidgets when he does so. Zéphyrin mocks his older relative, and tells him that the rifle isn't loaded.

Zéphyrin offers to go out there, and mow all of those pro-republicans to the pavement like grass. It's what they deserve, after all, for questioning the worth of the French monarchy. Sure, Marie Antionette was a big of a sow; but she was just one person, and France was a MUCH more different society at that time. Lucky for France, though, Zéphyrin has invented the perfect weapon to discipline them, if only he could get his predecessor's support...

Jules, still adamant about his republican convictions, reminds his successor that rightists are just as capable of living a good life within the lines of a leftist system as they'd have too much of in a rightist one. Besides, everyone's seen what happens when the rightists have too much of an advantage over the left. The right, of course, is all about advantage. They acknowledge their own, the use it, they abuse it, and they barely regard anyone who offers them accountability. Jules has been down that road before; and he will not be codepended back to it by anyone; not by the Emperor, not by the French flag, and certainly not by his own monarchist kin. Jules appreciates what his successor is trying to do; but he needs for France to give its kings, emperors, and otherwise despots a permanent holiday.

With that, he leaves Zéphyrin in peace. Or rather, he MEANS to leave Zéphyrin in peace...

But as you can imagine, Zéphyrin is hardly at peace. As long as France still fights Prussia on the Rhine, he still fights half the world in his soul. It also hasn't changed the fact that he's come up with the perfect way to replace Iron Man in global politics. And if Jules won't listen to his proposal...he knows four Turkish nationalists who just might have use for his skills...

Alas, he's capable of meeting a slight setback, if these four Turks care more that he's not Turkish than they do about his talent... But then, from what he's heard, they've just lost one of their own to the NYPD; they're probably hungering for all the help they can get.


	13. Chapter 13

This is Algiers. Many parts of this French-Arabian city are in flames.

All over the place, like a fucking juggernaut, Rhino barrels through town, turning over coaches, horses, and street lamps as he goes along. He takes up a gas-lit lamppost, and torches a man in his groin, while Shocker holds him steady with his electro-shocking prosthetic...

Boomerang throws several boomerangs. They impale a lot of people. Many duck to avoid them...before getting hit by the very thing they flailed to avoid. Many light up in midair, and set their targets ablaze once they've acquired them.

Using water from the Mediterranean, Hydro-Man floods many politically-sensitive spots in Algiers. Many victims are crushed under the weight of tidal waves...many of which have some of the most sinister and inhumane dynamics the weather's never seen...like that scary tidal wave that washed Fievel Mousekewitz overboard off his family's America-bound ship in _an American Tail_...

Raging like an electric fire, Shocker waves a pan-Turkic flag in the city square. With his prosthetic, he shocks anyone who dares try to knock him down; many do.

Up the coast, several amphibious barges creep in. They lower ramps ashore, and French mercs, all armed with lever-action pistols, storm the beaches.

Under Captain France's command, they march towards Algiers. By the will of Napoleon III, and the common good, Algiers will NOT fall to the Ottoman Empire, or the Sultan's Syndicate, today...

In the city, Shocker still waves the Turkish flag, screams, and electrically defends it. Rhino still barrels through the political streets, knocking down everyone who tries to get back up...and, taking shots via the machine gun turrets in his mecha suit, whenever a situation calls for it...or excessively less than it. Boomerang can't seem to run out of boomerangs; ordinary or higher-tech. Hydro-Man can't seem to run out of cruel ways to storm an Algerian beach with a supernatural tidal wave...

Captain France's detachment appears, atop a flight of city steps. Below, Capt. France can see Shocker defending a pan-Turkic flag with his existence...and his electro-shocking prosthetic.

Beneath the tricolor mask, a feminine voice chuckles. "That Turkish son of a bitch should've known better than to entangle with our sweet Berber colony."

She raises her arm, and gives a signal. Behind her, her commandos unpack their mortars, turn them towards Shocker, and unpack the ammo the mortars require.

They only await their captain's signal. Below, Shocker isn't getting tired.

"Volley," Capt. France commands in French. "FIRE!"

From the sky, hellfire rains down on Capt. France's commandos. All the mortar rounds explode before they're dropped into the mortars' barrels.

The Sultan's Syndicate, stops, and looks around. The explosion atop the pyramid is impressive. One at a time, they all check each other's comms. Not a single one of them takes credit for Capt. France's and her commando's demises.

From the sky, an exosuit descends. It lands in the streets, as Iron Man would've in his time.

From here and there, the Sultan's Syndicate surround their savior in a semicircle. Hydro-Man emerges from a city sewer, and shapeshifts into Munis Berkes.

The exosuit is white, and covered in thin black stripes, placed very close together. Anyone with vermouth goggles on would mistake it as a grey exosuit. Its visor is thin, and runs around the helmet like a laurel wreath. The suit's gauntlets, and sabatons, are as black as a zebra's hooves.

"_Teşekkür ederim_," Shocker says, thanking the exosuit's wearer. "Who are you?"

"I am your ally from France," a voice from inside the suit says. The front of his helmet peels apart, revealing his face. It's Zéphyrin Grévy, an ambitious product of a Paris family of monarchists. "You can call me _le Zèbre!_"

Berkes seems amused. Rhino gets down on all fours, and seems to bow to his team's savior.

"I owe you for your service to me," Shocker admits. "But why have you come?"

"I ask," Grévy implores, "as an exiled French scapegoat, to join your team's ranks."

"Don't know if you've heard," Boomerang laments, "but this is a Turkish nationalist movement."

"I will do whatever you require. I will even convert to a Turkish national, if that's what you demand of me. I may be French, but I can still benefit your cause. Plus, you're a man short, from what I've heard."

Boomerang gapes. "Do we seem incapable to you?"

"I don't know. But you'd probably have better luck asking Capt. France and her commandos so," Grévy looks over his shoulder, at the smoke billowing from the flame-broiled remains of Capt. France's commando unit, and grins, "if they'd succeeded in taking down your Shocker."

Shocker is still holding the Turkish flag he was waving earlier. He tosses it to Grévy; Grévy catches it, confused.

"I owe him," Shocker insists, taking off his helmet, and revealing the face of Hersek Sunay. "I say we let him join!"

The porthole in the chest of Rhino's mecha suit opens, revealing the face of Altay Sevim. "I do," he stammers, in a deep voice, "too."

"Well of course Rhino does," Boomerang mocks. "He couldn't object to a French flag if someone told him it was a pan-Turkic one."

"Pan-what," Sevim inadvertently confirms.

"They're right," Berkes admits. "As much as I hate to admit it, we need more manpower. Speed Demon's been captured, and we've still got too many cities to attack before we'll get a chance to spring him."

Berkes creeps up to Grévy, and extends his hand. Grévy orders his gauntlet to remove itself; it sprouts thrusters, and flies away. With a bare hand, he shakes Berkes. Berkes's shaking hand morphs into a tentacle made of water, girdling Grévy's forearm, and somewhat creeping him out.

"Welcome to the Sultan's Syndicate," Berkes says, "le Zèbre."

Grévy smiles. "The name's Zéphyrin Grévy." He summons his obsidian-colored gauntlet back. "Call me Zefi, if you must."

"Zefi," Sevim repeats.

"Hope you've got more armament where that comes from," Berkes tells him. "We've still got a long way to go before the world acknowledges Turkey as Earth's superior race."

"Believe me," Grévy half-whispers, "I'm ready."

Boomerang sighs, and shakes his head. "The Sultan's going to roast us all on a rotisserie, once he finds out we replaced Speed Demon with a Frenchman."

Behind him, a lone Algerian ranger tries to sneak up on him. Still depressed, he throws one last boomerang, and slaughters the ranger; he doesn't even look over his shoulder.


	14. Chapter 14

This is the Uzbek desert. It's big, hot, barren, and mostly flat. Too helpless to defend itself, it's an Ottoman province. Alas, the Russians have been trying to claim it for decades.

Somewhere far out here, far from any civilization, an archway stands alone. It's a horseshoe arch. For Turkic Muslims, it's a culture hearth. Alas, many have given up on it.

With that said, there is one very unlikely personality, within Turkish Islam, who hasn't. And he lives in Constantinople.

Today, though, his royal chariot rolls across the desert highway, drawn by camels. The camels are slow-going...but at least that's stable enough for his Imperial Majesty.

That's right; the sultan of the Ottoman Empire still visits the Mahdi's Archway in the Uzbek desert. He believes that, very soon, the Turkish nation will have what it needs to claim the Earth for Turkey, and finally put down anyone who dares proclaim their flag of higher quality than the pan-Turkic one.

In the chariot, time passes slowly. Sultan Abdülaziz sips strong coffee. His eunuchs drop horseshoes into the pot, before serving it to his Imperial Majesty. (It's a preparing tactic, that the eunuchs have recently picked up from the gunslingers of the American Wild West...)

On either side of the Sultan, one of two of his concubines sit, giggle, and flirt with him. To him, they'd be like lap dogs...if only Muslims weren't racist against dogs, wolves, foxes, and all that are kin to them.

With his concubines, he plays cards. Their inept bimbo-like manner of fumbling and dropping the cards, and failing to remember the _much_-repeated rules of the games, hardly amuses his Imperial Majesty as much as it did before he ascended to the Ottoman throne...

And, he smokes cigars. For this, his eunuchs open the chariot windows, choking as they go along.

At long last, the chariot arrives. They're in the middle of the desert.

The chariot door opens. A ramp is lowered, by the eunuchs. The Sultan descends, and takes a scimitar with him. A brute of a Turk offers to go with him. Abdülaziz refuses his company. This is very hard for him to do; he must do it alone.

In goat-steps, he crosses the desert. It's a very expansive desert. In over a century, a lot of great men would be inspired to shoot music videos out here... Alas, as extravagant as the Sultan's visions can be, some dinars are better spent on public necessities...

It's a long walk. Some of his Imperial Majesty's clothes start to itch...

At long last, he gets to the Mahdi's Arch. It's tall. It's not quite as high as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, but it's high enough. Ultimo could probably walk through it without having to do the limbo.

Leading up to it, phoenix sculptures sit on perches. Every now and then, their eyes glow with ginger light...

At the base of the arches' steps, a fire pit lies. It's used like an altar; or was, rather, the last time anyone traveled through that arch. From time to time, an eternal flame burns in it. It answers to a faithful visitor...

Abdülaziz stands over the fire pit, holding a bouquet of white flowers, from the paradise garden at his palace. He's ready to implore the Mahdi for help, on behalf of all Turkic and Turkish subjects, free and held captive by other bastard nations' greed, everywhere on the planet.

Within the arch, a strange smoke billows. Alas, it never leaves the confines of the archway, on either side. It just keeps billowing. And it circles back into the emptiness of the Arch.

Inside, voices whisper. Sometimes they're pleasant; other times, they warn.

In Turkish, Abdülaziz prays to the jinni, cherubs, and seraphs that attend to this shrine. He calls upon them to summon the Mahdi, bring him to Earth, and become the imperial power that Turkey needs that the merely human Sultan can never be.

Around, a desert wind blows. Abdülaziz's lucky it doesn't become a sandstorm.

Inside the arch, the voices ooh and ah in amusement. In its center, a white light flickers...

In the pit, the eternal flame lights. Abdülaziz smiles, and drops the bouquet onto it. Within a moment, all of their green and white are consumed. It's over as soon as it begins.

After that, the eternal flame goes out. Only a pile of ashes remain of Abdülaziz's flowers.

Please understand; Abdülaziz loves his faith, and his nation, enough to assassinate himself for it. But sometimes, like in these moments, he's tempted to question the sanity of his own loyalty to Allah, if not his nation...

Abdülaziz's shoes are off. He backs away from the pit, circles it, and stands before the Arch. The Arch glows, with golden light, in his presence. It seems threatened. Alas, Abdülaziz kneels, bends over, and worships the sacred ground atop which Allah's precious servants have tread...

Within the Arch, the gold light fades, and the smoke returns. It whispers, many times, "thank you," in Turkish, to one of Allah's most loyal servants in humanity's sector of the Marvel multiverse.

Nervous, and feeling a bit sold short, the Sultan commences his return journey. He puts his shoes back on, at the threshold, and makes the long way back to his chariot.

Within the Arch's smoke, something stirs. And subtly, something takes up the lit silhouette of a phoenix, with its wings spread...


	15. Chapter 15

These are the Armenian mountains. Turkey rules some of them.

Down a mountain road, a coach rolls. Black mules haul it. The coach is covered in a Turkish-red canvas. Its sides bear the Turkish star and crescent.

Between the tall rocky hills, robotic wolves creep. They're as big as horses...if not bigger. By order of their alpha female, they hunger for Turkish flesh. They're close, and they can all mutually feel it...

Inside the coach, many Armenian captives tremble. They've been evicted from their homes by the Sultan's secret police. They're all Indo-European; they're not Turkic. As helpless subjects of a hostile nation, their destiny is to become fuel for their captor nation's bonfires...

Up ahead, there's a camp. It's surrounded by barbed wire. Inside, non-Turkic captives of all races, Indo-European and otherwise, wander the grounds. This camp is a slaughterhouse; and they're the doomed livestock.

The coach arrives. The gates open. The coach is hauled through. Promptly, before the captives can escape, the gates close.

The coach stops, in the middle of the compound. The guards get out, armed with lever-action rifles, and open the back. One gets in, and points a rifle all around. The captives stand, and proceed to exit the coach...

Outside the camp, the Wild Pack closes in. On their alpha female's command, one by one, they leap over the fence. They barely even graze the top wires. Good thing, too; the top wires are the most-barbed.

All around, the captives scream, and clear a path for the Wild Pack. But they need not worry; the Wild Pack is here for racist Turks; not Indo-Europeans.

From atop the fence, some Turkish guards shoot. One of the Wild Pack robowolves stops, scowls, glares, crouches, leaps, and takes out the guard nest in no time. The guard doesn't stand a chance...and neither does his fez-clad head. The robowolf bites it off, in one bite.

This, of course, is more than torture for the Turks. As Muslims, the Turks just HATE dogs...even robotic ones...

The Wild Pack kills many Turkish warriors. Outgunned, they all defend themselves in vain. In the end, their red robes and fezes are strewn all over the compound. Only the innocent remain.

Here, the robowolves lie flat on the ground, surrounded by scared ex-captives. Within the robowolves' minds, an AI voices the phrase "get on, and sit tight, we are here to help," in multiple languages. Armenians, after all, aren't the only foreigners here who need salvation. In this situation, the Wild Pack robowolves act as personnel carriers.

From a camera in a UAV, Ms. Sablinova watches, as the captives nervously mount her Wild Pack's robowolves. She takes pride in watching her inventions work...even if it does feel insufficient, that this is only one Turkish death camp, and there are too many more of those where this one comes from, on all of Turkey's borders...as well as a few more intense and brutal ones closer to Turkey's heartland...

Such a shame, Silvija thinks, that Constantinople isn't in Turkey's heartland. If it were, it's sure be safer from the Greeks...and the Romanians...and the Bulgarians...

She watches, as the robowolves flee the death camp, with their backs loaded with innocent passengers. By the time the last robowolf leaves, the camp is empty; only remnants Turkish corpses remain.

"Another mission," Ms. Sablinova muses, "another win. The Wild Pack will take them all back to their respective nations of origin. They won't all have homes there...but at least they'll be safe from those awful Turks. As long as a sultan sits on the throne of Turkey, there will NEVER be enough I can do for my fellow Indo-Europeans..."

Her monologue is cut short by her company's AI, who remind her that her next appointment is in five minutes. She sighs, abandons the UAV's video feeds, and attends to her latest client...who, she hopes, will soon become her coworker.

As she returns to her office, she passes through a hall. She passes a window. Inside it, an exosuit prototype is on display. It's crimson.

She returns to her office, and sits at her desk. On one side of her desk, a chrome sculpture of a marten stands, poised, and fangs bared. On the other side, a sculpture of an antelope, made of the same material, stands rearing, with horns to spare. They're both silver, and they're both sables.

She sits at her desk, and calms herself, for the job interview that's about to take place. "So," she asks the interviewee, in her familiar Slavic accent, "what makes you qualified to join my Wild Pack, Ms. Nemirovsky?"

To Ms. Sablinova, the interviewee has a strange face. But to the Avengers, it's VERY familiar. In fact, as far as they're concerned, she's supposed to be back in New York, attending to the Iron Man armor in her late predecessor's, Tony Stark's, stead...

"Well," Galina smiles, and flaps her bobbed raven hair, "let's just stay, first off, that I have _dynamo_ experience with exosuits!"


	16. Chapter 16

This is an OsCorp tower. It's late at night. Up high, it's cloudy. Lightning flashes.

Lightning strikes the rod atop the tower. The tower absorbs its energy, via the rod.

Speed Demon is still under ice. Almost his entire body has been immobilized.

The one part that hasn't been is his hand. It vibrates out of control, free of his own.

Outside his cell, monitors keep track of his systems. He's still alive. OsCorp has plans to exploit him. Military forces all over the world can't wait...

Norma walks into a big room. She's in dark attire, and a pencil skirt. Her pumps click against the floor as she goes along. She wears her hair in a dark bob...as usual. She wears emerald and jade jewelry. Her mascara is dark, but not Gothic.

One wall of this room is a video screen. She activates it. At present, there's no signal. Norma carelessly chuckles; the party she means to speak to tonight has probably never seen a video screen in his life.

With a single green-polished finger, she flips a switch on the wall. Gradually, another wall spins on an adjustable pivot, and stores itself beneath a giant panel. Still frozen, Speed Demon is on that panel. His hand is elevated, and vibrating constantly.

He's got a mask over his head. Norma knows who he is; she's waiting to tell the right person.

She waits. She taps her heel. She checks her watch. She checks the grandfather clock she keeps in here.

Her predecessors adored grandfather clocks, for some reason. They adored Halloween almost just as much...

Norma's almost shocked. With all this green that runs in her family, she'd think they would've preferred St. Patrick's Day...

One of the straps on Norma's corset is loose. She sighs, loosens her jacket, and tightens it...

Finally, a picture appears on the video screen. It's a Turkish eunuch's face. "Hello," he says, in pathetic English. "Testing?!"

Norma screams; her coat is still loose. She turns around, and struggles to better prepare herself.

Behind her, the eunuch grins. Just because he's lost his balls doesn't mean he's lost his appreciation...

When she's ready, she turns back around. "Sorry," she stammers.

"Don't be," the eunuch says, smiling.

Norma adjusts her silver crescent moon-and-star earrings. She's worn them for the Muslim occasion.

"First of all, you don't need to stand that close to the screen."

"Of course I do."

Norma stares at him.

He sighs. "Fine." He backs away. "What else?"

"I need to talk to your boss. Is he there, like he said he'd be?"

The eunuch looks around. "His Imperial Majesty is occupied...but won't be in five minutes."

"Thank you for putting that together, Mustafa," a more masculine voice says, off-screen. "I'll take it from here."

The eunuch stares back at Norma, shyly, and waves. The Sultan shoves him out of the way, summons a fat armchair, and sits, as he addresses OsCorp.

"I'm sorry to inconvenience you like this, your Majesty," Norma says. "But I need..."

"Moment, please," he says. He orders a hookah. His eunuchs bring one to him. He takes up one of its many hoses, and inhales from it.

"Sorry," he blows smoke, nearly blinding Norma's view of him through it. "What've you got for me, Ms. Osborn?"

"If you make it a point to not blow your smoke to where you can't see me," Norma mutters, "I'll show you."

"I will not be commanded by a woman," the Sultan insists, "especially not when she's American. You've no idea, Ms. Osborn, how lucky you are that I even agreed to this...uncomfortably high-tech meeting with you."

"Fine. Very well; between puffs of smoke, I'd like you to consider something."

She summons the panel Speed Demon's strapped to, to where the Sultan would be able to see him...if his hookah cloud didn't almost completely conceal the screen.

Norma taps her heel. She makes a lot of noise. That hookah cloud takes a very long time to clear.

"Could you keep it down, Ms. Osborn! I can't savor my shisha!"

"Take a break from puffing, and I'll stop tapping my heel!"

Behind the cloud, the Sultan scoffs. "I hate American women. They think they're so smart..."

"I heard that," Norma blares.

At last the smoke clears. The Sultan reluctantly hangs up his hookah hose, and looks at the screen. "Very well, Ms. Osborn. What do you have for me to consider?"

Frustrated, she stretches out her arm towards Speed Demon.

Sultan gapes. "Hey! You caught one of the Sultan's Syndicate! Marvelous!"

Norma stares.

"If you're trying to negotiate a prisoner exchange, forget it. I've already told the _Daily Bugle_ that the Syndicate isn't affiliated with me."

"Oh sure," Norma grumbles. "And HAMMER isn't affiliated with me, right?"

He reaches for his hookah hose. Norma goes back to tapping her heel. The Sultan hesitates, and stays his smoke.

"I don't want one of your prisoners," Norma clarifies. "I want to have sex with more than half of them, but that's not what I'm here for. I want you to invest in some of my company's stock."

"Why would I do that? As much as I appreciate your country for harboring Turkish emigrants as well as...relatively degenerate races within your melting pot there...somehow I doubt my investment in an American company will encourage my subjects to pay me their _zakat_."

"Because if you do, you'll get more than my company's stock in exchange for your payment. Your country's throne will get to have an heir again."

In the Sultan's background, all falls silent. There's something about the Sultan's stare that Norma doesn't like...

The Sultan chuckles. "What heir? What makes you think my heir's in trouble?"

"HA," Norma exclaims. "Let me give you a clue."

A clawed robotic arm reaches across the panel Speed Demon's strapped to. It pinches the mask that's over his face. Gradually, the mask is pulled off.

When it's off, Norma arches her brows. "What say you, your Imperial Majesty? Care to consider my company's stock?"

A silent moment passes. Then, and for some reason Norma can't quite decipher, the Sultan bursts out laughing. He laughs hard, and he laughs long. He falls over in his chair.

Confused, Norma shakes her head. She doesn't get it.

The Sultan stops laughing on a dime, still fallen over. "HEY, EUNUCHS! DO YOU THINK I PAY YOU TO BE A PACK OF NEUTERED HYENAS?! COME SET MY CHAIR BACK UPRIGHT!"

The eunuchs swarm back, and set the chair back upright. In a flash, they scurry away.

"Hyena clans are actually led by the females," one eunuch mutters.

"SHUT UP," the Sultan shouts.

"Your Majesty, what are you doing?!" Norma seems more confused, and less confident, than before. "This man is your kin! He's going to succeed you..."

"I don't know if you read the _Daily Bugle_ where you are, Ms. Osborn," Abdülaziz begins, reaching back for his hookah, "but the boy behind that mask was never my heir. He's not even my pride and joy." He blows another hookah cloud. "On the contrary, he's my shame and sadness. He might be my royal family's product, but I wish he wasn't."

"But...you can't do that to him! He's your family!"

"I've heard your words before, Ms. Osborn. But first of all, they're not your own. And second of all, you should know better than to waste them on me. I'm the Ottoman Emperor. It's my job to make compromises for the expansion of the empire, and seeing as that boy you have on a slab is hardly military material, you'll understand why I'd never ask him to handle the Ottoman throne with care. As the news reports of the Sultan's Syndicate say-and again, I have NOTHING to do with them-the Speed Demon is NOT careful. Stylish, maybe... But about as careful with a throne of men as Human Torch once was with Princess Crystal's heart!"

"Hey, that's not his...!" Norma sobers up, remembering that that's not what she's mad at. "What do you mean the Speed Demon isn't military material?! HE'S A FUCKING SPEEDSTER!"

"He's also a terrorist. And as far as my people are concerned, terrorists belong where they'll do the least damage: OUTSIDE OF MY COUNTRY'S BORDERS. I'm glad you have him there at one of your facilities. Therefore, I implore you to keep him there until one of you dies!"

"Your Majesty, you can't just..."

"I admire your effort, Ms. Osborn. I really do. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a nation to lead and an empire to expand." With that, he stands, and calls for one of his eunuchs to disassemble the videophone.

Flustered, Norma angrily uses a remote control to shut off her own video screen. She sighs, and orders the AI to re-mask Speed Demon and put him back in his cell.

Around her, the AI complies. Norma gets on an elevator, and takes it up to the penthouse.

Once up there, she stands on the penthouse's terrace. She looks up at the dark cloudy sky, lets go, and screams in rage.

Simultaneously, lightning flashes, and thunder rumbles. She screams again; the lightning and thunder keeps it up.


	17. Chapter 17

As much as she'd rather not, Norma clocks out early tonight. She still can't imagine why the Turkish sultan would reject his own kin. It's one thing for him to deny his abetting of the Sultan's Syndicate; she's pretty sure the world expected that from him. But the Sand Demon was different. Or, at least, SHE thought so... She's wondering if she should...

But then, what if one of her employees heard of it? As much as she understands that it was like many of her predecessors to have sex affairs with test subjects, she's not really trying to repeat her predecessors' mistakes...

One time, there was this wild turkey from another dimension, and... This is too outrageous to dwell on.

Reluctantly, OsCorp shuts down for the night. Norma takes a coach home...as much as she'd rather take that glider her upstate lab's been experimenting with...

In his containment cell, Speed Demon's hand vibrates. It can't stop. But then, Norma doesn't expect it to. She's even invented energy-absorbing materials, in which Speed Demon's inhuman speed energy is collected, for the purpose of further experimentation/invention development. She's working on a speed serum, that the New York state militia, among a few others, have expressed interest in investing in... It may prove useful, in the wars with the Indians out West...

Speed Demon's been rejected...by the Turkish Sultan. He doesn't show it...but then, he can't, as Norma has him.

Far away, from Uzbekistan, the cloud in the remote arch tries to connect with him. Between itself, the cloud grows hot. It glows orange. Something hisses inside, and flashes light...

Somehow, Speed Demon starts phasing through what's keeping him captive. All around him, alarms go off.

One constraint at a time, he vibrates like crazy, and phases through his bonds as if they were nothing. Once free, he takes off in a flash. He phases right through the back wall of Norma's building, and takes off across the Atlantic Ocean, like a basilisk lizard.

He takes a detour, to Constantinople. In a flash, he zips into Dolmabahçe Palace, nicks a stick of lipstick, leaves a scribbled message on a mirror in his Imperial Majesty's chambers, and leaves. Outside, the guards' hats get blown off by Speed Demon's tail wind...but naturally, they don't see him come or leave. Even if they did, they couldn't chase him if they wanted to.

He makes it to the Uzbek desert. He speeds right into the arch, without hesitating. And he vanishes. Whatever's inside takes him under his wing, and suckles him with her fire...

All around the Arch, torches light. A storm blows. All around, gerbils and lizards are spooked, as they scurry back to their burrows. Some, alas, stay, with starry eyes, and watch.

The cloud inside the Arch lights up. It's like a beacon in the night...

Someone, from inside, walks through. It's Speed Demon. His eyes glow orange. He breathes smoke. He vibrates. He generates smoke as he does.

On his hood, a phoenix symbol carves itself. It cuts right through to his forehead, causing him to flinch and swear.

Around, some of the jerboas and lizards follow their kin to their burrows. This is just too gruesome to watch...

"This is strange," Speed Demon says, with a voice that's neither disguised nor his. He peers around, with glowing eyes. "In a big way, the shoe's too small. In other small ways, the shoe is too big..."

He looks around. There's a lot of space out there...and whatever's inside Speed Demon has only got a little body, and a little power, to cover it...

"Sorry, cute boy," the voice says, "but ultimately, I can get picky, when it comes to inhabiting a new host." With that, the right half of Speed Demon's face catches fire.

The gerbils squeak, and scurry back to their burrows. The lizards gape, and keep watching...

Behind him, Speed Demon sprouts a pair of wings. He's got an errand to run...

Hours pass. The sun rises over Constantinople. Roosters crow. Hourglasses run out of sand...

This is Dolmabahçe Palace. It's changed much, since its grand opening in 1856. That's alarming. Most of Turkey's most powerful officials are conservatives...

In a bed full of concubines, Sultan Abdülaziz slumbers. Across his chambers, the sun streams through his window...

Before him, the doors to his chambers open. The morning's peace is shattered by a screaming eunuch.

This wakes the concubines...but not the Sultan. Once they realize what's going on, they scream too. They virtually trample the eunuch as they leave their Imperial Majesty be.

There's a corpse on the floor, before the doors to his Imperial Majesty's chambers. The audience wouldn't know him, because you've never seen him out-of-costume. His name is Yalçðn Sandalli. Earlier in his life, he was the Sultan's errand boy, and later his student. The ladies loved him so much, he made a lot of tabloids; or rather, the Victorian equivalent of them. But then, when Turkey refused to become a republic, as Sandalli publicly advocated for, at great risk to his relationship with society, Abdülaziz refuted any remaining connection with him, and left him alone...alone to join the Sultan's Syndicate, when they came to Constantinople recruiting...as if that wasn't where it was founded...

Yes; this is the corpse of Speed Demon. Whatever possessed him didn't like how he fit, so it returned him to the man who'd most likely understand...

If the Arch and the Sultan didn't have something in common before, they sure do now...

In the morgue, a pair of eunuchs rip open the cloth that covers Sandalli's back. Whatever did this to him left a message...carved, in fire, into it. The message says one word, in all-caps: REJECTED. The "T" in the word is fashioned to look like a phoenix, with its wings spread...

One eunuch sighs, and shakes his head. "Sorry, folks," he jokes, "but it looks like this one WASN'T Jafar's 'diamond in the rough..."

Another eunuch scoffs. "As much as I appreciate _Arabian Nights_, that version of that story hasn't been animated yet...or filmed."

The other eunuchs look at him, confused...


	18. Chapter 18

Ms. Brant has retired. She lies on her bed, topless. Editing _the Daily Bugle_ can be a lot of work; and it often is. Ms. Brant's just glad to collect whatever time away from it she can...even if she does have collect it away from New York's men.

Somewhere in her chambers, wee Peter Parker is on the prowl...like his successor's uncle, only mite-sized...and younger. MUCH younger... Here and there, Peter lurks around the space of his will-be employer. When she's the size of a titaness, she's more than a gorgeous femme to behold...

He knows he risks sacrificing whatever chances he has of becoming her little photo-taking slave when and if he comes of age... Nonetheless, she's a boss worth taking risks for...as he once almost died in a Kurdish mosque just to prove.

There are portraits, and photos, of men in her house. Some are Brants; others are Leedses. There are at least three pictures of male Brants in Union military uniforms; one wears a sailor's uniform, and another was in the New York state militia. There are at least five of male Leedses who wear the uniforms of New York cops. Peter's shocked there wasn't one Leeds for each of New York's boroughs.

He takes a closer look. Interesting; they ARE all from separate boroughs! And the one from Queens looks exactly like...

No time to dwell, Peter knows. He's got a titaness/will-be boss to stalk...

In her chambers, she slumbers. Her guard is lower than it's ever been...that Peter's seen.

Like a tiny spider, he wall-crawls her bare thighs. Only her panties conceal her NSFWs from his sight; the dark sure doesn't. They seem short, for 1870 panties... But then, this is steampunk; nothing is as it was for real...just with more steam engines than there could've possibly been during the real thing...

Crap; I'm starting to sound like Deadpool.

Ah, Betty Brant's thigh. Peter wonders how many women in her matriline had these, in their respective youths. She probably doesn't know half as much about them as she does her Brant patriline...despite the fact she's not even part of it. But then, she might...

They're so developed. They're in their zenith of development. On their surface, Peter often wishes he was smaller. Her thighs are magnificent; O how he hates J. Jonah Jameson for taking them for granted, back when Ms. Brant was just her physically repressed sidekick.

She dresses like she's EMOTIONALLY repressed... And she's more free to be so, now that physical repression is no longer a necessity for her...

There is NOTHING physically repressed about Ms. Brant to Peter. In all fairness, now HE'S the one who's physically repressed. And as manly as he is, he loves it. He just wishes he could spend every waking moment of it lost atop one of his will-be boss's valuables.

He's like a mite on her thigh. If she woke, she could crush him like one...and it's unclear as to whether Peter could trust his spider abilities to keep him from dying if she tried...

And now, her breasts. Funny; Peter once heard rumors that Ms. Brant was flat-chested. Clearly, whoever coined that rumor had never slept with her. Peter hasn't either; but all in all, he considers this BETTER than sleeping with his will-be boss, while he's still cougar bait material...

With his spider abilities, climbing the bottom of her left boob-the one closest to her heart-feels too easy to be right. But he mustn't pass up her boobs. Depending on how she feels about him, this might be the only chance he gets to ascend them. At his size, it's a long way up, and a long way over.

Far ahead, Ms. Brant slumbers. It's as if she can't feel Peter at all...

Peter's hard for his will-be boss. He's never been prouder to be underdeveloped... Alas, he wishes this could last the rest of his life. And he hopes that, deep down inside, assuming that she'd reject him, she wishes it could too...

He's panting. He can't stop. He loves where he's at. Plus, he's worried that Ms. Brant is going to wake and crush him like a bug at any moment...

Most of the women in New York hate her. Peter can't imagine why. But then again, he thinks maybe he can... If Morgan were here, she'd sure be competing against her for...

Morgan... Peter wonders if he should check up on her? Or better yet, her hot mother? Ugh, but that's SUCH a long way from here. And Peter is so small, and so tired... Nope; the Potts matriline is just going to have to make it through tonight without Spider Man I's protection.

Spider-Man II protects New York now...whoever he really is. The Potts matriline will just have to call him, if a supervillain attacks them in the night...

And now, that's more likely than before. From what Peter's heard, a new villain named le Zebre has replaced Speed Demon on the Sultan's Syndicate... They're saying he supports Napoleon III, but Peter doesn't know. For all Peter knows, the same people probably say that France will win the Franco-Prussian War, and annex Prussia, and any of the German states that try to protect it...as well as all German states that DON'T try to protect it...Austrian and Swiss ones, even...

Well; probably not Austrian ones. Those Hungarian freaks would have Austria's back, if they were invaded. And from what Peter's heard, Austria-Hungary WANTS to be invaded...and NOT because it wants to be any country's subject...

Ms. Brant's lips are big. They open and close, as they please. Gas blows from them, and enters them...not always predictably, but always soothingly. Veins of weak acid flow from her lips...

As much as Peter doesn't think he should, he perches on Ms. Brant's bottom lip. It's wet up here, he can tell. The acid will probably dissolve his hands, if he stays here too long. But as a nerd, he just can't pass up the suspense of being this close to an apocalyptic meltdown...of himself...seventy-five years before the Cold War will begin...

Peter lingers for as long as he dares. Then, he leaps to her upper lip, and continues his climb.

Not a moment too soon, Ms. Brant flicks her tongue. Peter freezes with terror. And yet...he's somewhat stimulated by the discovery that Ms. Brant has a tongue piercing. Nonetheless, her tongue retreats back into her mouth, and she sighs serenely.

Far away, her boobs rise and fall. Peter almost wishes he was still on them then...

He's on the tip of her nose now. It stands high over the rest of her face. It's the peak of it. Needless to say, Peter can see her whole face from here...with Spidey night vision...

This is the face of Ms. Brant. This is what makes her unique. This is also the face of _the Daily Bugle_'s editorship... But then, as icy as Ms. Brant can be, she probably has PR reps for that...

What's more, it's a face Peter has fallen in love with. Way up here, he's almost forgotten all about Liz...and Morgan...and Ms. Potts...and Ms. Reilly...and Kamala, whatever she looks like when she's not dressed as a Muslim...

Up here, he lies atop Ms. Brant's nose, sighs, and smiles. For now, and for as long as it lasts, there's no disorder in his world...

Alas, on either side of him, Ms. Brant's eyes open. She bats her lashes, and smiles. Peter doesn't notice. He's still in sexual ecstasy...

From far away, the back of her hand approaches his feet. There's a ring on its finger. It isn't a wedding one. In fact...

His briefs, ones that he's designed specifically to be worn under his suit, are metal-lined. Peter screams, as these seem to fly away, with him still wearing them.

They smack into the side of Ms. Brant's ring, and stick there. Peter hangs upside-down from her ring, in deathly suspense.

In goat steps, Ms. Brant sits up. She lights a bedside candle, striking the match on the back of the bedside table. It hurts Peter's eyes, as his Spidey sense adjusts to the light. She holds her ringed hand in front of her, and looks down upon little Peter.

He still hangs upside down from her ring, like a little mite. If he was in suspense before, he's terrified now.

"Hello, Peter." Ms. Brant flaps her raven bob. "I've been expecting you."


	19. Chapter 19

With easy hands, Mrs. Jameson fixes breakfast. She must serve her over-demanding husband, as long as she still has the will to bear how much that wedding ring strangles her left ring finger...

From the back of her skirt, still less than a thousandth his normal size, Spider-Man I stalks her. But Mrs. Jameson need not worry; while her appeal is still WAY too young for a man as old as Jameson, she's not his mission...

With the breakfast on a tray, she wanders upstairs, to the master bedroom. Spidey hangs from her skirt, as she goes along...

It's a long way down. It's even longer still, judging the stairs. Plus, Spidey can see the back of her feet from here...and not to mention her legs. A LOT of her legs...if only for split seconds at a time...

Jonah lies on a bed. His window is open. He smokes a huge cigar. He reads several issues of the _Bugle_ at a time (they're all in a big pile, on the other side of his bed). He just HATES what Ms. Brant has done to his legacy... Then again, from what he's heard, a lot of his ex-jackasses are glad he's gone... Not that their opinion ever mattered to him. But then...it sure didn't change the fact that none of his photographers could ever catch Spidey in the act of committing actual crime...

His wife comes in. She coughs from the cigar smoke. Jonah smiles, puts the cigar in the ash tray, and sits back, as the wife puts the tray in front of him, in the bed, over his waist.

THIS is Spidey's opportunity. As much as he hates to, he swings under Mrs. Jameson's skirt, flashes some upskirt photos for later, and lands on the wooden platter. He won't deny that from down here, the wood smells good...

Once she's sure her man is comfy, Mrs. Jameson leaves him be. Alone at last, Jameson smokes and flips the bird at the _Bugle_, between bites of his breakfast...

Beneath his pajamas, he's acquired more than just a few symptoms of an old man. And that's what Peter's here to investigate...

Somehow, Spidey has infiltrated Mr. Jameson's kidney. There's a lot of fluid in here, but...he can't seem to figure out what Ms. Brant wants him to come in here for so badly...

A rock, as big as an asteroid, floats past him. It nearly hits Spidey. He swerves, and watches, gawking. Several more come out of hiding, and nearly hit Peter...

Automatically, the suit takes pictures. Apparently, the _Bugle_'s old editor as a bit of a kidney stone problem...

Later on, Ms. Brant reads the latest edition of the Bugle. There's a picture of Mr. Jameson's many kidney stones on the front page, headlined by the caption, IS J. JONAH JACKASS TOO OLD TO CUT THE MUSTARD, FOR PRESSMAKING, OR JUST FOR STANDARD URINATION?

In Ms. Brant's ear, a gadget plays music. It plays Red Foley's and Ernest Tubb's "Too Old to Cut the Mustard..."

She giggles. "Ah, he's going to hate this SO much." She kisses her own hand, and blows across it. "New York thanks you, Peter."

A messenger comes in, and leaves a letter in Ms. Brant's mail basket. It's very thick, and has got Mr. Jameson's return address on it.

She tries to read the first three pages of her old boss's retaliating insults...but doesn't make it. And naturally, there are about a thousand more where that comes from.

The messenger confesses that they were all confused at first. They almost sent Mr. Jameson's envelope to a publishing house, because they thought it was a manuscript for a novel...

Ms. Brant giggles. "The day J. Jonah Jameson starts writing novels will be the day men start going through puberty at thirty." She looks around, with a sinister look. "Speaking of what..."

Another messenger comes in. She leaves a report in the "just in" box...

Ms. Brant arches her brows, grabs the report and reads it. She arches her brows, and gapes. And, she smiles. She traces her lips with her polished fingers, and giggles.

"Well now, Peter... It looks like I need your talents...again."

The report concerns OsCorp. Apparently, a test subject has escaped...which isn't very precedented, as rumor has it...


	20. Chapter 20

The sun rises over New York. For Ms. Brant, it's a new day of pressmaking…

From her bed, she rises. She's in lingerie. She seems tired. Nonetheless, she MUST get the longer story of how a test subject escaped from OsCorp…

She opens her panties drawer. In her panties, Peter sleeps...until the light blares in his eyes.

Ms. Brant lets him sleep in here...under conditions...including the ones where Peter climbs into her pussy, on some nights, and give his will-be boss a good time...

"Sorry to wake you, Peter," she says to him, "but I need you again. We're going to OsCorp."

"You sure need me a lot," Peter comments. "Are you sure I'm just a freelancer?"

She giggles. "If I hired you full-time, I'd lose my job for sure. And I am a very rich and powerful lady. I NEED to make money."

She holds out her index finger. To Peter, it's like half a bridge.

She shrugs. "I could just...tell your ex-aunt, Ms. Reilly, what you really do at nights..."

Peter sighs, shoots a web, and swings up onto her nail. Her nail is so big, he could play tennis on it.

"Ah, that's such a good spider!" She cups her hand around Peter. Her hand is huge. Everything about her is huge; she's like a fucking titaness. And to think she's only a newspaper editor...

"Actually," she confesses, "at your size, you're more like a mite..."

She sticks her finger into her own rack, and pulls it out. Peter isn't on her nail when she pulls it out...

Over here, this is OsCorp. It seems the parking lot outside it has admitted less traffic, since the escape...

From the sky, Rachel Grey uses her powers to descend. She lands on the roof of OsCorp Tower. She's here to save a fellow hero in despair. She knows that Peter Parker is alive...unlike a lot of other heroes who used to know him...

Much farther down, Ms. Brant enters the waiting room. She takes off her shoes, and sits in a green-upholstered chair. She looks around. It...seems that green is the dominant color of all the interior décor in this facility...

She grabs a copy of the _Bugle_ from the reading table, and flips through it. Somehow, _Bugle_ readers are STILL on fire about Mr. Jameson's kidney stones... Ms. Brant's pretty sure that she's now making more money from her ex-bosses kidney stones alone, than he ever did offering a reward for a photo of Spider-Man going bad...

I mean seriously; offering rewards causes a business to LOSE money. What the hell was Mr. Jameson thinking?!

As Ms. Brant reads, Rachel comes downstairs, via the elevator. She sneaks into the waiting room, and takes a seat. She grabs a photo book, and flips through it. They're all photos of outer space; the stars, specifically...

She acknowledges Ms. Brant. With her powers, she can hear her thoughts. She's about to have fewer. Rachel places her fingers against her head, and concentrates...

On the other side of the paper, Ms. Brant gets to a certain page. There's a caption there. It's been there for a while, but Ms. Brant looks at it as if she's just now noticing it. It reads, WHO IS SPIDER-MAN?

"Hmm," she asks, scratching beneath her black bob. "Who IS Spider-Man?" She shrugs. "I should probably pay one of my photographers to find out." She chuckles. "He probably isn't the same person as before."

"Oh," Rachel whispers, and subtly scolds herself. "Not THAT much!"

Ms. Brant looks up from her paper. "Did you say something?"

"Uh," Rachel stammers, "I said, 'this place is green a bunch!"

"Oh!" Ms. Brant flips through her paper, and looks around. "Yeah, I noticed that to. Here, you'd think every day is St. Patrick's Day!"

The two women share a giggle. Alas, Rachel sure hopes this conversation doesn't get TOO sentimental...

Now free of Ms. Brant's blackmail, Peter swings through the building, like a mite. With luck, Yellowjacket hasn't been breaking and entering too often...

Somehow, he finds the place where Speed Demon was kept captive. He starts sleuthing...

As he suspected, there are no signs of forced exit. But then, Speed Demon was a speedster; seems like he could've phased through everything. Question is, why didn't he earlier? If he was always this capable of escape, why did HAMMER even succeed in catching him?"

This has got Peter stumped. Nonetheless, he swings upstairs. There's a certain someone, in the CEO's office, who Peter can't wait to stalk...

With luck, he'll have better luck stalking her than he's had his will-be boss...

Alas, Speed Demon isn't the only interesting thing OsCorp has acquired. It's also not the most interesting thing OsCorp has MADE. And hence, Peter gets distracted. This is, after all, how (and where) Spider-Man got his powers...


	21. Chapter 21

Across the sky, an expensive aircraft flies, cloaking itself from everything below. It's got "Silver Sable International" painted on its stern.

Aboard, Ms. Nemirovsky tires herself, as she adds upgrades to her new Crimson Dynamo exosuit. In times like these, she wonders if she should've stayed with the Avengers, as Iron Man... But she always shakes her head, and decides against it. She's warming up to her new life as Crimson Dynamo, and as a member of the Silver Sable's Wild Pack...

First class, Silver and Victor have white wine, and talk. They're both a long way from Symkaria and Latveria.

"Ms. Osborn's not going to like this," Victor tells her.

"You don't have to tell me," Silver reminds him. "Really."

"There are plenty of other companies you could do this to. I'm sure Prussia's producing a lot of excesses, fighting the French on the Rhine. Also, Japan's doing a lot to mimic Europe. You could try storming Yashida Corporation, or Fujikawa Industries..."

Silver shakes her head. "I know more about OsCorp. I know of a few things they make that I could exploit. Besides, there are way too many white people in the world who're under attack. The Osborns like to channel their rage into what they invest in. They are the revenge weaponry that I need." She blinks. "Yashida's stuff is good for revenge too, but... They keep saying that Russia's going to go to war with Japan in a few years, and I'd hate to soil my company's reputation with our will-be enemy's signatures."

Victor arches his brows. "They'd be Japanese calligraphs, no doubt. I've heard that Japan's in the middle of a civil war. They're replacing their samurai-led feudal system with a more European capitalist regimen." He scoffs. "Crazy..."

"I hear the Japanese have just hired an American colonel who looks a lot like President Grant."

Victor scoffs. "I'd hate to see how THAT'LL turn out..."

An explosion happens in Nemirovsky's lab, startling Silver. Silver sighs. "Could you keep the experimentation down, Galina?! Most things aboard this craft don't react well to bullets!"

"Sorry," Galina shouts, from the lab. "If it's any consolation, I wasn't expecting that to happen!"

Silver scoffs. "I'm sure Iron Man never did, either," Silver mutters, "back when he was alive."

"We should probably land this thing," Victor offers. "There might be somewhere nearby where we can refuel..."

Silver shakes her head. "We're going straight to OsCorp. My fellow whitefolk are in danger. Every second we spend preparing is a second our enemies spend whetting us away, one woman and child at a time."

Victor scoffs. "And they think I'M Doctor Doom..."


	22. Chapter 22

It's another slow day at OsCorp. Everyone wants something from it...and takes a slow and painful time to get rejected.

In a lab upstairs, many powered gliders hang. In many glass cases in the walls, androids are kept. They all look like goblins. They all have green trim...

In the CEO's office, Norma faces the long day. There are a lot of prospective clients she needs to reject. There are a lot of civil servants with unfair-yet-fair requests to make of her. Sometimes she has no idea why she was super-quick to step up to the role of CEO of Oscorp...other than that she's an Osborn, that is.

At least in an age of quills, she's typing on a computer. It's a bit Cold War-esque...but as far as she's concerned, it does more and faster work than a quill sure can.

Speed Demon wasn't her test subject for very long...but her instruments DID collect some useful data...and not to mention some superhuman tissue, that could come in handy. On her desktop, she runs sims with it. She programs the AI in it to run sims on Speed Demon's BS while she's on coffee break.

Her nails are painted green...like her eyes. At work, she makes a lot of people feel uneasy. Frankly, though, she just thinks that everyday life is just a LITTLE boring. Plus, it's never that hard for her to scare people.

Atop OsCorp Tower, a covert jet lands. It's got the letters SILVER SABLE INTERNATIONAL printed across its side.

From its stern, the jet lowers a ramp. From it, Crimson Dynamo walks out, all suited-up.

In the sky, someone shadowy flies around the top of OsCorp Tower. Via an HUD, they zoom in, on where Crimson Dynamo walks, and looks around. One of the icons on the HUD looks like a targeting icon...

Inside its exo-helmet, someone grumbles, vengefully. They fly away, and keep their distance...for now.

Back in Norma's office, Norma types away. Green never looked better on her nails...

Among them, what looks like a tiny red-and-blue mite swings between them, and climbs them, as if they were crane arms. They're MUCH bigger to him.

High above, Norma doesn't see. She just types, coughs against the back of her hand, and keeps typing.

Peter's only seen Norma in this light once...at a ball that Morgan once went to, without him. He recalls how grand it was, ogling up Norma's skirt while hiding inside Morgan's, across the table at which they sat... Ah, good times. With luck, Norma's got weaker senses than Betty. She'd better.

Peter still can't believe he's doing this, so soon after getting caught by Betty. How he must've inconvenienced Ms. Grey, by requiring her to brainwash Ms. Brant, and make her forget her blackmailing of him...

Groaning, Silver Sable crawls through a vent duct, toting an Arctic sniper rifle with a scope. OsCorp sure knows its tech...

At a vent, she takes a break, and gets on the comms, with Doom. "Victor? Please tell me you're okay."

Doom answers. He's in the lab with all the goblin/androids.

"I'm here," he tells her. "And I must say that Norma Osborn has got some of the best vision I've seen in a North American company."

"Great. Just be sure to raise an alarm if you sense trouble. If I know one thing about OsCorp, they don't take security lightly. We've probably already sprung a trap, and don't even realize it yet."

"Copy that. Over and out."

Doom walks around the room, browsing the androids. He's not sure why, but androids have always inspired him...

He stops, when he comes across one that catches his eye. This android has got slits for eyes. He seems a bit steampunk, but... Is this not a steampunk fanfic?

Onward, Norma works. If her tower's been broken into, she doesn't suggest she knows.

Below, on her hand, Mite-Man is still on the prowl. As much as he still adores the view, he can't help but notice that she wears a loose top. She's a bit flat-chested, but... She STILL looks great, with bare arms...

Atop the tower, Crimson Dynamo stands watch. Imitating a moonwalking astronaut (not that she knows what that's like, understand), she paces in circles around the roof.

The jet's taken off, and flies a patrol of its own. It's cloaked; no one with human eyes sees it.

Crimson Dynamo is tempted to take to the sky, and show off. Even so, her exosuit needs its power. She's not sure why. She's felt underutilized since joining the Wild Pack...

Nearby, on the roof, Iron Man lands. Crimson Dynamo's confused... But then, it makes sense, that the Avengers have replaced Iron Man this soon after her own desertion from the role.

Crimson Dynamo raises the visor on her suit, revealing Galina Nemirovsky's face. "Hi," she greets Iron Man...or someone who dresses and flies like him. "What are you doing here?"

In her office, Norma keeps working. She barely notices it, when a great exosuit battle commences just outside her office window.

Peter notices it first. He balloons away from Norma's hand...as much as he hates to...and tries to balloon to a spot where he can see it happen...

But he can't do that in time, before an alarm goes off, in the tower. Concerned, Norma puts the tower on lockdown, and deploys the Gobloids, for insurance.

Below, the Gobloids are activated. They smash the glass they're in, and mount their gliders, as they fly by. As they're activated, they all laugh like goblins.

Doom is their closest trespassing target. They laugh, surround him, and aim their gliders' turrets at him.

Gaping, Doom looks around, for a likely way out. There doesn't seem to be. He turns around, and looks at that other android, in the glass case. Somehow, it hasn't answered the alarm...

"Volley," the Gobloids say. Beneath them, their turrets heat up.

Desperate, Doom aims his hand at the case with the spare android in it, closes his eyes, and starts chanting.

From outside, a lab assistant screams, as she walks past a door that belches fire and smoke, as the Gobloids take down Doom. Or rather, they THINK they've taken him down...


	23. Chapter 23

In another room in OsCorp Tower, a vent falls from the ceiling, and onto the floor. It clanks when it does.

Silver Sable swings out, drops her long rifle, and lets herself fall to the floor. She looks around, leans her rifle against the wall near the door, opens the door, looks around, closes it, and gets to work.

She fills her bag with loot. She'll need all she can get, if she's going to wreak genocide on those awful Turks like they've wreaked havoc on North Macedonians, Montenegrins, Romanians, Kurds, Afghanis, Kashmiris, and the like.

When she's ready, she prepares to leave. She gets on her comms, and asks for Crimson Dynamo's twenty. She doesn't answer. She panics, a bit, when Doom doesn't answer, either.

But she can't give up. She just hates to leave Nemirovsky and Doom behind...but the cause will die if she gets caught.

She bursts out, and looks around. There's a window at the end of the tunnel. She smiles, signals her jet, and runs towards it. It gets bigger, as she approaches it...

Alas, an elevator opens near the end of the hallway. Norma steps out, and blocks Silver Sable's path.

Silver Sable stops, grunts, and aims her rifle at Norma.

Norma smiles, flaps her black bob, and snaps her fingers. Behind her, her air force of Gobloids appear.

"I call it my Green Legion," she tells Silver Sable, "to rival Stark International's Iron Legion. There are still a few bugs to work out, but... I do believe they're combat-ready. I just saw some security footage. Your male companion, the king of Latveria, has been assassinated."

Silver Sable screams in rage, raises her rifle, and takes a shot at Norma...with a silver sniper bullet.

One of the Gobloids flies in the bullet's path, of course, and catches it. And he eats it, with his mouth open, for spite. He giggles evilly, after he has.

"Just how primitive do you think I am, Silver Sable? I am Norma Osborn, CEO of OsCorp. And the Osborns have never bred a single dunce." She raises her brows. "Can you truly say THAT much, for the so-called precious 'white people' who you deliberately slaughter Turks, all over the world, your own Symkaria included, to protect?"

"HEY," Silver Sable shouts. "You're white too, in case you sometimes forget!"

Norma spreads out her arms, in a confused stance. "Do I look like a victim to you?"

Tiny, through the air, Mite-Man balloons from Norma's downblouse to the ass of Silver Sable's suit. She's sure got a huge ass. Or rather, to Peter, it LOOKS huge, from down and back here.

Peter's not sure who this Silver Sable is...but she looks fascinating. He decides to follow Silver Sable around, to see what she's up to...if Norma doesn't kill her first.

Now, that seems very likely. Even so, Silver Sable throws her bag to the ground. From it, a pack of robo-wolves springs, and assembles behind their pack alpha: Silver Sable.

"Looks like we're more evenly matched than you suggest," Silver Sable grumbles, "NORMA. Now, let us pass! As a CEO myself, I'd hate to become responsible for the death of a fellow one...especially a fellow WOMAN one!"

Norma giggles. "Don't flatter yourself, little old sable." Behind her, her Green Legion fires up its armament. "You know I like my robot wars just a little on the urban side."

Her Green Legion giggles, and assembles right in front of Norma. Across the divide, the robo-wolves assemble, bare their fangs, and raise the prosthetic hair on their backs.

Tiny as a mite, Peter perches on Silver Sable's knee, and watches what unfolds...


	24. Chapter 24

The two robot armies are assembled: the Green Legion and the Wild Pack. For many moments, they taunt one another, daring each other to open fire first...

Neither one does. In an explosive flash of light, yet ANOTHER android appears. He scatters Gobloids and robo-wolves, as he teleports into place.

The light dims. Norma stands petrified, with her arms spread out. Behind her, the glass wall has shattered. Silver Sable lies on her back, on the floor, and gapes up at who could be her savior...

It's a big, strong android. He's got slits for eyes. His feet are heavy...as are most of his robotics. There's a green glow, within his eyes...almost Osborn green...but not quite Osborn.

"You," Norma gapes. "You shouldn't be outside your container! I'm going to have you deactivated, and put back."

"Save your discipline, little woman," the android says, in a creepy/depressed voice. "You will only bow in the presence of Dr. Doom!"

He raises his arm, and somehow, telekinetically, forces Norma to bow. Norma struggles not to, but Dr. Doom's overpowered her.

Above her, Doom laughs. He seems to shiver...

Behind him, Silver Sable blinks, as she's overcome with a hopeful hunch. "Victor," she squeaks. "Is...is that you?"

With his other arm, Doom gives her a thumbs-up. Then, he holds out the same hand, telling her to stay back.

"You won't get away with this," Norma sneers. "You don't know it yet...but I've got help coming!"

From the other end of the hall, a robotic bull destroys a wall, and turns it to rubble. It aims its robotic horns at Dr. Doom, blares its robotic horn, and charges.

Doom turns around, and acknowledges the threat, with his glowing eye slits. Free of his telekinesis, Norma crawls away, and takes the elevator upstairs.

The angry robo-bull approaches. He's mostly of stainless steel, and his eyes glow green, too...

Doom laughs, teleports away, and re-appears, armed with a green cloak. Like a matador, he does cloak-work with Ms. Osborn's creation.

On the floor, Silver Sable gapes, as she watches her unfair-weathered friend take on a robotic bull, like a champion matador. From the zipper in the front of her suit, tiny Peter watches, too...and is just as amazed as she is.

Doom animates the cloak, and sends it away...and the robo-bull with it. Doom raises one of his arms; a broad sword is erected from his hand.

"Come here, my trophy," he moans, holding the sword high, "and meet your end at the hands of the reborn and reincarnated Dr. Doom, king of Latveria, master of the android!"

Like Dr. Strange's Cloak of Levitation, the green cloak returns to its thief. And, the robo-bull charges him again.

Almost magically, Doom slides himself beneath the robo-bull, as he runs. As he slides right between the bull's robotic horns, his sword lights up, in his hand. With it, he slices the robo-bull in half, from bow to stern, as if the robo-bull was two halves of a fruit.

Still on the floor, Silver Sable gapes, and puts her hand on her left breast. She inadvertently nearly smothers Peter, while doing so...

Victorious, Dr. Doom stands, de-powers his sword, and sheathes it. Next, he grabs one half of the bull, holds it high over his head, teleports to the smashed glass wall, and throws it down, over ten stories, to a coach, parked near the sidewalk. He summons the other half, with telekinesis, and prepares to do the same thing...

"No," Silver Sable yells, standing. "Wait!"

Dr. Doom stops, and listens.

"We can use that. We can make one of our own, if we have to. Or something better!"

Dr. Doom stands, with the half-robo-bull still over his head, thinking... He nods, teleports away, and returns.

"It's aboard the jet," he says. He dusts himself off, and helps Silver Sable to her feet. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

Peter isn't sure how he feels about this. He still doesn't know that Doom and Sablinova plan to leave the country. This'll be the first time young Peter has ever done so...unless Deseret counts.

Nearby, the green cloak still levitates. Doom wanders over to it, and caresses the fabric in his robotic hands. He shivers, as the cloak makes him think...

Atop Oscorp Tower roof, many moments later, Doom teleports into view...wearing the green cloak, with its hood up. NOW his transformation is complete...

Aboard the jet, Sablinova tries to summon Doom aboard. Doom holds up his hand, refusing. In a hurry, Sablinova shrugs, closes the stern ramp, and orders the craft, via voice command, back to Symkaria.

True to her command, the craft takes off, cloaking itself during its ascension. Dr. Doom hovers, and later flies, near it...as his new green cloak flaps behind him, both like a flag, and Thor's cape...

Far away, in the Catskill Mountains, Crimson Dynamo and Iron Man are still having at it. Iron Man's getting the upper hand...

At long last, Iron Man stands over Crimson Dynamo's body, near victorious. Both of Crimson Dynamo's exo-gauntlets have fallen off...as have both her exo-sabatons. Part of her chest plate is cracked...no thanks to Iron Man's exo-sabaton.

Galina pants, and raises the visor on her helmet. "So," she says, in a Slavic accent, "can we just call it, now?"

"Not so fast," a voice says, from inside the suit. "I think it's only fair to let you know who I really am."

Galina scoffs. "You're one lousy excuse for a superhero, if you think that revealing your secret identity to a foe is a good idea.

Despite hearing this, "Iron Man" raises the visor on his helmet, and shows his face. On the ground, Nemirovsky gapes bigger than ever.

"Holy Kremlin," she swears. "How...?! Why...?!"

With his exo-gauntlet, Iron Man blows Crimson Dynamo's head off...exo-helmet and all. He leaves her fallen corpse in the Catskills, and flies away, victorious...but not entirely moral...despite Crimson Dynamo's infamy, long before Nemirovsky ever started wearing the suit.


	25. Chapter 25

Ah, Symkaria. It's good to see that some things never change...

This is the top of Silver Sable Tower. There's a penthouse atop it.

Silvija sits in a window, and looks out...towards Latveria. She's distraught. Her BFF almost got killed, on her last mission. What's even worse, he's not the same man. He's not a man at all. He's an android...and he seems okay with that...for some reason.

Below the windowsill she sits in, a Russian blue paces back and forth, rubbing on her bare leg. She picks up the cat, and pets her.

She can't take this anymore. She stands, throws the cat on the bed, and takes a trip to a room downstairs.

In it, there's a high-tech telephone. North America sill has six years to go before Bell invents the telephone. All the Russian States have to do is wait for someone else to invent it for them...and never hear of Bell when the time comes.

Silvija doesn't even have to dial. She picks up the receiver, and presses a button. She wipes her eyes, and waits for Victor to pick up. He sure takes his time. But then, he's still getting used to being an OsCorp android, isn't he?

At last, he picks up. "Silvija," he mutters. "How are you?"

"I've been thinking, Victor. And I can't do this anymore. You're off the Wild Pack. I don't want you to come with me to do jobs anymore."

"Look, Silvija, I like what's happened to me. I didn't die..."

"I don't care. You could've. I almost lost you. I can't ever risk that again. Plus, you're not the same man. You're not a man. You'll never be...never again. I'm serious. This is my op. Let me handle it...without you."

Depressed, Victor lies on his bed, in his own royal mansion in Latveria. He sighs, and acknowledges his longtime unfair-weathered friend's concern.

"Fine," he says. "Your op. I'll stay away. I'm sorry it has to be this way."

"Me too." She wipes her eyes. "See you socially, at least."

"You too." With that, Victor hangs up, and sighs. On one hand, he likes what he's become. OTOH, he must confess his life hasn't been the same since that mission...

Overwhelmed, he clasps his robot hands behind his head, and tries to get some sleep. The lights in his eye-slits dim...

And, they brighten again, as he has a vision. In it, there's a bright light. It's shaped like a phoenix. It's far away. It keeps calling his name...

_You are strong_, it says. _We need your help. Come. Free us._

Slowly, Victor sits up, in bed. He turns his robot head here, and there. He thinks he knows where that voice came from. Funny; up until a few moments ago, he didn't even know that place existed...

He rises. He grabs his green cloak, and heads out.

He has a rendezvous with a mysterious force...out in the Kazakh desert. With or without luck, he'll return a different man...and it's already bad enough, for sweet Silvija, that she can no longer look at Victor without being reminded of how horrible it was to lose him.

He doesn't expect this rendezvous to make him feel better. But it sure would be nice for him, if not Silvija, if it did.


	26. Chapter 26

Abroad, the Sultan's Syndicate is still on the offensive. They're after the non-Turkic world...and they're not backing down until they've torn it all down.

In the city of Bombay in Maharashtra, the stampedes are flowing through the city like water over rock. All around them, there's rubble, and torn buildings.

Rhino is on another rampage. He shouts Turkish insults, between charges. And he does charge. That mecha suit is of both vibranium and adamantium...

On the island of Ceylon, in Chennai, a flood from a typhoon is on. It rains, and many tidal waves dump all of their wrath on the many Sinhalese locals that live here.

Atop a Buddhist monastery, a lone bhikku stands, exposed to judgment. He chants, in Sinhalese, closes his eyes, and spreads his arms, while waiting for the surrounding flood to rise, and claim his only home in the world...besides Tibet...and the Buddhist afterlife, of course.

From the flood, before the monastery, a dragon, made entirely of water, rises. He glares down at the monk, narrows his eyes, and bares his huge fangs.

The monk opens his eyes, and glares up at the water-dragon. It's Hydro-Man. Wherever the Sultan's Syndicate goes, he just can't leave the seas alone...

The monk narrows his eyes, takes two pieces of flint from his robe, and strikes them together. He's drenched in oil...or was, rather, before the storm.

Nothing happens. He keeps striking them. Still, nothing happens. He smells his robe. He can't smell the oil. He trembles.

Hydro-Man laughs, still posing as the dragon. "Clearly, your degenerate religion forgot to teach you that too much water trumps fire."

With a claw made entirely of water, Hydro-Man scratches the bhikku's belly, and rips his robe apart, from top to bottom. The robe flies off of the bhikku, and away, into the storm.

Hydro-Man raises his dragon head, smiles, and sprays a geyser of water all over the robe. It falls into the flood.

"I am bhikku," the bhikku shouts, "Seeker of Enlightenment, servant of the Dharma Wheel! And for alms or for free, I WILL die with my faith exposed!"

Hydro-Man chuckles. "Oh, that's good. Because right now," Hydro-Man spreads his dragon wings, "ALL of you is exposed!" With that, Hydro-Man howls with evil laughter.

The bhikku looks down at himself. He's in the buff. He looks up...and screams, like a eunuch.

"So long, bhikku," Hydro-Man growls, "and thanks for all the alms!" With that, Hydro-Man, as the water dragon, leaps, dives, opens his jaws wide, and consumes the whole damn monastery, with the bhikku still standing in the buff, and screaming like a eunuch, atop it...

All around the rock, the monastery washes away to nothing. Hydro-Man may be water...but he can sure have an ego, at times...

In the city of Bhubaneswar in Orissa, a herd of Brahman cattle stampede through the street. They trample every human in their path.

Here, the cow is worshipped. Everyone here who worships the Hindu Swastika (which is just about everyone) are flabbergasted, that their beloved Brahma, the god of all creation, would accurse them, by weaponizing his creations to do Shiva's bidding.

"Oh, why?!" An Odia woman shouts, standing atop a building, and succumbing to her grief. "Why?!"

At the rear of the herd, Shocker shows off the gadgetry in his prosthetics, encouraging the stampede. He leaps from cow's rear end to cow's rear end, charging his prosthetics, and stabbing the cows in the rear with electrified toys.

On some of the Brahmans' ears, they've got tags chained to them. The tags read, NORTHCUTT BRAHMANS.

Today, Shocker is the world's most productive cattle prod. With the stampede, he literally cleans up this town.

In the herd's wake, many corpses and injured bodies lie. A statue of Brahma, in the city's center, has had its top half destroyed...and crumbles from there.

All over the world, the Sultan's Syndicate has cleaned up a lot of degenerate non-Turkic messes. It's hard to believe that only one of them STILL hasn't learned to trust le Zèbre, their newest, and most unexpected recruit...considering that he's French, and not Turkic, as the same one of them would still prefer...


	27. Chapter 27

Welcome to the Maldives. Don't mind the boomerang-barbed wreckage.

In Malé, Boomerang's on a role. He virtually generates boomerangs, as he darts from here to there. Airborne, they spin through the air, and hit many Dhivehi locals in destructive ways. Some of them are going to mosque.

Some explode, like grenades. Others shoot bolas, and bind their victims...right before impaling them. Some of them generate boxing gloves, within their centers. Some of them generate, and activate buzz saws, and decapitate their victims...

"Don't think that just because you're Muslim," Boomerang shouts, before throwing another one, "means that the Sinister Syndicate will overlook the white scars on your skin! The ones that confirm, Muslim or not, that you do, in fact, come from the white man's balls!"

A boomerang hits a Dhivehi target, and electrocutes him. Ah, how Boomerang doesn't sometimes miss working with Electro...

The city garrison arrives, in khakis. They stand in formation, load their lever-action rifles, make ready, set, and aim their rifles down-range, at Boomerang.

Simultaneously, Boomerang throws a magnetic boomerang, and the company fires.

As the boomerang flies, it gathers every bullet that's shot at Boomerang. It flies towards the company commander, and decapitates him...just as one of his men is about to push him out of the way.

Once on the ground, a moment passes before the man opens his eyes, and tries to look into his faithful leader's eyes...only to see that his eyes aren't there, and that neither is his head. He screams, like a eunuch. Above him, another boomerang flies. It comes down into his back, and impales him through the chest. He falls, and dies atop his company commander.

Boomerang then throws a more powerful magnetic boomerang. This one disarms the company of their lever-action rifles. Boomerang throws another boomerang, which generates a loud sound, deafening the Dhivehi locals, and bending every barrel of every rifle that the first boomerang disarmed of the company.

"Ah, a tropical climate," Boomerang smiles. "I gotta love it."

Boomerang now throws a barrage of knife-bladed boomerangs, killing every man in the once-armed company. Some try to run, retreat, desert, or all of the above. It's no use; Boomerang kills them all.

Boomerang looks around. There's not one degenerate local left to slay. He smiles, stands in the center of the city, and takes a breather. He's earned one...

Around a building, a musician walks. He carries a guitar case. He bears alarming resemblance to Mark Collie. Silently, he sits on a stool, and unpacks his guitar.

On the back, his guitar says, in fancy letters, HARRY HECK.

Boomerang opens his eyes, when he hears Heck strum the first chord of what he's about to perform. He slowly turns, and acknowledges Heck, as he sings the first verse of "In Time."

Boomerang just stands there, and stares at Heck, as he performs. Heck sure doesn't seem to concerned about his own well-being...

In the streets, a gunshot echoes. Boomerang draws a boomerang, and turns to face the new threat at large...

It's a supersoldier. He wears Iron Jack-patterened battledress, and carries a vibranium shield. It's orange-yellow, with a black swan in its center. He's got his shield's symbol on his forehead, too.

"O my motherfucking shitball-bowling Allah," Boomerang grieves. "It's Captain Western Australia."

"Good day, mate!" Capt. WA holsters his pistol. "I hate to do this to you, but you're trespassing."

"I find that hard to believe," Boomerang shouts, studying his enemy's harness. "Looks like I've found my archnemesis!"

"Well then," Capt. WA draws one of his. Orange lights blink on it. "It's a boomerang dance, is it not?"

"Shut the fuck up," Boomerang draws two of his, "and let's get fucking on with it!"

And, it's on. All through the air, in the streets, and through windows, boomerangs fly, explode, shoot nets, shoot darts, spin saw blades, punch gloves, throw bolas, and do all other sorts of destruction.

On the porch where he sits, Heck only smiles, and strums his guitar. Again, he doesn't seem too concerned for his own well-being...


	28. Chapter 28

Captain Western Australia valiantly flies through a mosque window, shattering its painted glass. He uses his vibranium shield as a buffer. He stands, with a boomerang drawn, and looks around.

He's in a suite with floral motifs on the wall. The suite connects the nursery to the kitchen.

Capt. WA creeps through the suite, aiming his boomerang here, and there. An Iron Jack banner hangs from one of the horseshoe arches. An anarchist when it comes to British rule, Capt. WA smirks, throws a grenade boomerang, and burns that banner to shreds, as soon as the boomerang blows it up...and brings down the arch's keystone with it.

Here and there, now and then, to this one and that one, Capt. WA creeps. He's going to finish that Boomerang off, if it's the last thing he does...

He steps on something soft...TOO soft. He hesitates, before looking down.

It's a human infant...on the floor of the nursery. That's a dead one, if Capt. WA ever saw one...

A rogue boomerang flies through the vaults. Capt. WA valiantly holds up his shield, and deflects it...inadvertently creating a pile of rubble, as it explodes and destroys a statue of Mohammed.

From the shadows of the kitchen, Boomerang emerges. Capt. WA draws another boomerang, and dreads his enemy's arrival...

Boomerang steps into the light. Again, he draws a pair of boomerangs. Away from Capt. WA, he throws one.

It sticks into a floral motif, on the wall. It plays music; Eric Heatherly's rendition of "Flowers on the Wall," to be more precise.

Like a football, Capt. WA kicks the dead infant. Boomerang swats it away, causing it to land on an oven tray, on an island.

They toss coals to one another, and toss them into the oven furnace. They strike pieces of flint together, stylishly, and light the oven flames.

The two men gather bottles of cooking oil, and throw them stylishly, fight-dancing to Eric Heatherly's song from the future. In doing so, they lather the infant, while it's on the tray, in cooking oil...

They each collect things, and mix their own stuffing. Wearing their gloves, they take turns, stuffing the infant.

They gather bottles of herbs, and hit them together, stylishly, as if they were nunchuks...or percussion sticks, rather. Between tappings, they sprinkle the seasonings all over the oil-soaked infant.

They both touch the oven, in sync. It's hot. Stylishly, they pass the infant, as it's on the tray, back and forth to one another, swinging it around themselves as they go along. Capt. WA tosses it into the oven. Boomerang closes the door with his foot. Capt. WA sets an hourglass, for as long as it takes for the infant to cook. Boomerang puts a camera near it, which will send a signal to them, when the infant's fully cooked.

And now, they return to fighting. Somehow, the song's still playing. They fight-dance to it, occasionally trying to kill each other as they go along.

They nearly tear the wall down, throwing boomerangs at one another. Crying shame; those sure are gorgeous floral motifs.

The song's final rhythm is winding down. They chase each other into the auditorium, which is styled like an amphitheater.

They take a detour, into the dressing room. Somehow, as they're fighting, Capt. WA ends up in black ladies' garments. Boomerang ends up in white ones.

They fall through a ceiling, and land on the auditorium's stage. Above and beyond, they're surrounded by Muslim Dhivehi corpses. The imam's corpse is near Capt. WA's infant blood-stained foot.

Backstage, there's a phonograph. Boomerang attends to it, and puts the record on. It's the musical score from _Black Swan_.

On stage, dressed as the Black and White Swan from the ballet, the two men fight. Ever see a version of the Black Swan with a vibranium shield? I'm sure even Natalie Portman was too dim to think of it. Not that she wasn't wise; her ass, in the Black Swan's tights, is magnificent enough without a vibranium shield to tote around on stage...

They throw boomerangs at one another. All around the auditorium, more damage is done. Holes are blown in stucco. The explosions are amplified by the dome aloft. At least the explosions inadvertently enhance the percussion of the musical score...

As they fight, they've hallucinations. Here and there, their legs inflate, and nearly shape-shift into swan's legs. Their necks, also, extend themselves, like a swan's...

Spontaneously and simultaneously, they both spread wings. Capt. WA's are black; Boomerang's are white. They look at one another, and shout. They throw boomerang, and gradually shred away one another's wings.

At one point, the timer for the infant goes off. They both miss it.

Upstairs, Harley Heck pulls the infant out of the oven. He sets it on a towel, pulls off one of its legs, smiles, and takes a bite out of it, as if it were a chicken leg. He chews it, looks around, and smiles, as if he can't hear the racket going on downstairs.

Downstairs, Capt. WA/Black Swan regrows his wings, and throws his shield, like a discus. As it distracts his foe, he leaps, and flies to the center of the dome, above.

Angrily, Boomerang spreads white wings of his own. He flaps them, and deflects Capt. WA's shield, as it comes back for him. He leaps, and flies after Capt. WA.

The top of the dome shatters, as Black Swan makes his grand escape. He flies, turns, draws submachine guns, aims them at the dome below, and shatters the dome with a barrage of fire.

Inside, glass rain falls. This merely scars White Swan's wings, as he rises to chase his opponent around the mosque.

And the fight-flight is on. They fly in circles around the mosque, tackling one another. Somehow, they both avoid the ground. Somehow, they don't kill each other.

They land atop an onion dome. Up here, they shed their wings.

Around the spire atop the dome, Capt. WA's shield completes its flight. Capt. WA catches it, and resumes his epic fight with the Turkish Boomerang.

"I'll be someone else is eating our infant," Boomerang sneers.

"Let them," Capt. WA sneers. With that, the boomerang-throwing resumes.

Everywhere, grenade/boomerangs explode. Bolas latch themselves to the spire. The spire deflects the buzzsaw boomerangs and the boxing glove boomerangs, as they hit it.

Capt. WA deflects a boxing glove boomerang with his shield, as it nearly hits the black swan symbol on his forehead. It still hits a black swan symbol, though; just the one on his shield; the one that ISN'T worth a score...

Boomerang deflects the boxing glove boomerang, draws two boomerangs, and tries to use them as daggers, while violently attacking Capt. WA. He screams, and charges.

Capt. WA puts up his shield, and deflects the boomerang/daggers, each time. They make sparks, as they make contact...

As a grenade boomerang flies, it blows a hole in the onion dome. Boomerang's leg accidentally falls into it, pinning him.

Far above, a strange HUD sights the fight atop the onion dome, and zooms in. On it, symbols pinpoint both Boomerang and Capt. WA, identifying them both, and pinning IFF labels on them...

With Boomerang pinned, Capt. WA goes to work. He draws a submachine gun, laughs, and closes in on his pinned opponent, with the barrel pointed at the trapped Boomerang.

Boomerang waits for it... When his opponent closes in, he grabs one of his boomerangs, uses it as a dagger, and sabs him in the abdomen.

Capt. WA doubles over, and whines. Boomerang gets himself out of the hole, and throws one last boomerang. Atop the dome, it sets a wolf trap.

In rage, Capt. WA stands, throws away his shield, and draws two knife boomerangs of his own. In a blaze of glory, he shouts, and charges his insolent foe...

Smiling, Boomerang throws one last boxing glove boomerang. It hits Capt. WA in the groin, and sends him screaming like a eunuch and spiraling backwards...right into the wolf trap.

He screams even louder, when his leg gets caught. Turks might actually be meaner to their wolves, than the Germans are with their wolfsangels…

"In Turkey," Boomerang tells his foe, "we consider the wolf a sacred symbol. Our kin the Mongolians do, too. Even so, they like to raid our livestock. Also, in the grand scheme of things, no khan can rule forever...and the ones with the most golden hordes will someday lose their shine."

Capt. WA is in distress. He can't escape.

"Now, I hear that gold is also a big industry where you come from. I'm sorry I have none for you. But you mustn't fret. I'm sure that Western Australia, like everyone else, has a glimmering afterlife for fallen supersoldiers, where the Valkyries wear golden bikini armor, and the beer flows like Shark Bay, and the wine flows like Swan River."

With a bleeding mouth, Capt. WA scoffs, while looking up.

"You've been a worthy foe," Boomerang admits. "And that's why I'm doing you the honor...of NOT unmasking you right before I kill you."

With that, Boomerang picks up Capt. WA's submachine gun, and aims it point-blank, at his head. "So long, mate," Boomerang imitates an Aussie accent, "and thanks for all the wine and gold." With that, he pulls the trigger, and shatters the fallen supersoldier's head to bits.

Through the sky, the shield still spins. Boomerang barely acknowledges it, as he throws one last grenade boomerang. Up there, where the jinni fly, Capt. WA's shield is shattered. Its fragments fall, like volcanic ash, into the mosque's now-abandoned paradise garden.

Boomerang smiles. "I just took down a patriotic supersoldier," Boomerang mutters. "And I did it without," he imitates a frufru French accent, "le Zèbre...or even a fancy striped exosuit..."

Dog-tired, Boomerang climbs down from the mosque. His infant, the one he hoped to eat as a victory feast, is gone. Only its skeleton remains on the oven pan he and Capt. WA put it on, while fighting.

Once again, Boomerang is in the streets. At long last, he's pretty sure that Malé has fallen...

From up the street, an armored horse races. Its rider has got a spear...and a long lever-action rifle. He's speeding right towards Boomerang. The latter's back is turned.

Boomerang hears this, and retaliates. Heck, the rider, brings up his rifle, and shoots the boomerang. And he throws the spear.

Boomerang leaps, to avoid it. This is a mistake. The spear lets loose a net, which ensnares Boomerang.

Pinned, Boomerang reaches for a knife/boomerang, and tries to cut his way out. Heck dismounts, reloads his rifle, aims it, and shoots Boomerang in the leg. He shouts, and swears in Turkish.

"Don't you know the rules of engagement," Heck sneers, "you yellow-bellied Turk?"

Helpless, Boomerang looks up, bleeding. He's been felled for sure, this time.

Heck aims the rifle, point-blank, at Boomerang's head. "Rule number four," he arrogantly reminds Boomerang, "don't bring a knife to a gunfight."

Right on cue, Heck is impaled, from behind, by a long and broad French blade. The blade drips with his blood, from the front. Heck gapes. Blood drips from his mouth.

Near them, the triumphant le Zèbre, the miraculous savior, lands, clad in his exosuit. His visor vanishes. He marches over to Heck, and pulls the blade from Heck's back.

"You've been watching him all day," Grévy reminds his victim. "You KNOW that we all know that rule." With that, and with the same blade, Grévy decapitates Heck.

He cuts Boomerang free, and helps him to his feet. Boomerang shakes his hand, and removes his mask, revealing the face of Vural Melen.

"Welcome to the majority rule of the team," Melen smiles, "Messiur Grévy."

"Great," Grévy says, smiling. "About damn time the lone holdout warmed up to me."

"Don't get your hopes up too high, Zebra. Remember; in the grand scheme of things, you're still just a white man. But for the time being, consider my trust in you...with my life. You've earned it."

With that, Boomerang mounts le Zèbre, and the latter flies away. Below, they leave a ruined Malé, with a more ruined mosque and the remains of a cannibalized infant.

The Sultan's Syndicate has patched up what division it's had. Now, it's more formidable than ever. And Slavia is next on its list of non-Turkic targets...


	29. Chapter 29

Long by now, little Peter is VERY paranoid. Needless to say, he's never been to a foreign country before...unless Deseret counts.

His hostess really loves her big investments. That much he's deduced. She's a lot like Morgan. At least she seems to have more autonomy than what Ms. Potts gives Morgan. Maybe even INDEPENDENCE, itself...

On a bookcase, a sable marten, with silver-colored fur, stands. His hostess probably bred it for the sole purpose of killing, stuffing, and mounting it...all so the Silver Sable could have a silver sable...

In general, his hostess seems to prefer her silvers and whites. She also seems to like her Colt revolver-shaped keychains...

Still mite-sized, Peter perches on one, and looks around. He's in a glass dish. He seems to share the neighborhood with many keys, tags, and coins. The coins are worth anything from five centimes to ten francs.

To Peter, they're the size of floors. This keychain pendant is like a mountain. All around him, the glass wall of the dish is like a fort. If he didn't know any better, he'd say he was in the Winter Palace itself...

Somehow, Peter finds a way out. He shoots out a webbed thread, and balloons his way through Aniana's business district.

He shudders. Again, he's never been to a foreign country before. This is all strange to him. In fact, he's too scared to look for a way back to Queens.

He balloons over the Royal Palace. It's grand. It's hard for little Peter to believe that his new host gets some orders from who lives there.

He returns to Silver Sable International's main building. He flies in circles around most of his host's assets. Basically, she dwarfs him. She's made a fortune that he can't even begin to imagine.

This wouldn't be the first time. He's already been dwarfed by Ms. Potts and Morgan, back in Queens. Alas, neither lady has a Symkarian accent. Peter would never say this out loud, but he is SO turned on by everything about Ms. Sablinova…

She's got so many assets. She's got factories, where weapons are proliferated. And these weapons can do SO many things that a Henry rifle sure can't do. On one hand, Peter can relate. OTOH, he has a hard time finding people like this in Queens.

The Starks and the Osborns are great, but... Every now and then, a mentor dies, and a best friend goes rogue.

At last, Peter returns to Ms. Sablinova's penthouse. She'll be rising at any moment now...


	30. Chapter 30

Ms. Sablinova has retired. She lies on her bed, topless. Being the CEO of Silver Sable International can be a lot of work; and it often is. Ms. Sablinova's just glad to collect whatever time away from it she can...even if she does have collect it away from Symkaria's men.

Somewhere in her chambers, wee Peter Parker is on the prowl...like his successor's uncle, only mite-sized...and younger. MUCH younger... Here and there, Peter lurks around the space of this...strange, scary, yet gorgeous foreigner. When she's the size of a titaness, she's more than a gorgeous femme to behold...

There are portraits, and photos, of men in her house. Some are Sablinovas; others are Dooms. There are at least three pictures of male Sablinovas in uniform; one wears a paratrooper's uniform, and another was in the Symkarian Air Force. There are at least five male Dooms who wear the uniforms of Aniana cops. Peter's shocked there wasn't one Doom for each of the Russian Empire's conquests.

In her chambers, she slumbers. Her guard is lower than it's ever been...that Peter's seen.

Like a tiny spider, he wall-crawls her bare thighs. Only her panties conceal her NSFWs from his sight; the dark sure doesn't. They seem short, for 1870 panties... But then, this is steampunk; nothing is as it was for real...just with more steam engines than there could've possibly been during the real thing...

Crap; I'm starting to sound like Gwenpool.

Ah, Silvija Sablinova's thigh. Peter wonders how many women in her matriline had these, in their respective youths. She probably doesn't know half as much about them as she does her Sablinova patriline...despite the fact she's not even part of it. But then, she might...

They're SO developed. They're in their zenith of development. On their surface, Peter often wishes he was smaller. Her thighs are magnificent; O how he already hates Alexander II for taking them for granted, as well as Dr. Doom...

Is it King Victor, or Kaiser Victor, or Tsar Victor, or... Never mind.

She dresses like she's EMOTIONALLY repressed... And she's more free to be so, now that physical repression is no longer a necessity for her...

There is NOTHING physically repressed about Ms. Sablinova to Peter. In all fairness, now HE'S the one who's physically repressed. And as manly as he is, he loves it. He just wishes he could spend every waking moment of it lost atop one of the Silver Sable's valuables.

He's like a mite on her thigh. If she woke, she could crush him like one...and it's unclear as to whether Peter could trust his spider abilities to keep him from dying if she tried...

And now, her breasts. Ah, the mountainousness of them... Ah, their greatness... And to think that in Russia, they thought CATHERINE was the Great...

With his spider abilities, climbing the bottom of her left boob-the one closest to her heart-feels too easy to be right. But he mustn't pass up her boobs. Depending on how she feels about him, this might be the only chance he gets to ascend them. At his size, it's a long way up, and a long way over.

Far ahead, Ms. Sablinova slumbers. It's as if she can't feel Peter at all...

Peter's hard for the Silver Sable. He's never been prouder to be underdeveloped... Alas, he wishes this could last the rest of his life. And he hopes that, deep down inside, assuming that she'd reject him, she wishes it could too...

He's panting. He can't stop. He loves where he's at. Plus, he's worried that Ms. Sablinova is going to wake and crush him like a bug at any moment...

Most of the women in Symkaria hate her. Peter can't imagine why. But then again, he thinks maybe he can... If Morgan were here, she'd sure be competing against her for...

It turns out there's a VERY sensitive reason Morgan isn't here...that's got nothing to do with her age, or where she should be. But that comes later...

Ms. Sablinova's lips are big. They open and close, as they please. Gas blows from them, and enters them...not always predictably, but always soothingly. Veins of weak acid flow from her lips...

As much as Peter doesn't think he should, he perches on Ms. Sablinova's bottom lip. It's wet up here, he can tell. The acid will probably dissolve his hands, if he stays here too long. But as a nerd, he just can't pass up the suspense of being this close to an apocalyptic meltdown...of himself...seventy-five years before the Cold War will begin...

Peter lingers for as long as he dares. Then, he leaps to her upper lip, and continues his climb.

Not a moment too soon, Ms. Sablinova flicks her tongue. Peter freezes with terror. And yet...he's somewhat stimulated by the discovery that Ms. Sablinova has a tongue piercing. Nonetheless, her tongue retreats back into her mouth, and she sighs serenely.

Far away, her boobs rise and fall. Peter almost wishes he was still on them...

He's on the tip of her nose now. It stands high over the rest of her face. It's the peak of it. Needless to say, Peter can see her whole face from here...with Spidey night vision...

This is the face of Ms. Sablinova. This is what makes her unique. This is also the face of Silver Sable International's management... But then, as icy as Ms. Sablinova can be, she probably has PR reps for that...

What's more, it's a face Peter has fallen in love with. Way up here, he's almost forgotten all about Liz...and Morgan...and Ms. Potts...and Ms. Reilly...and Kamala...and even Ms. Brant...as unmissable as she was, at the time...

Up here, he lies atop Ms. Sablinova's nose, sighs, and smiles. For now, and for as long as it lasts, there's no disorder in his world...

Alas, on either side of him, Ms. Sablinova's eyes open. She bats her lashes, and smiles. Peter doesn't notice. He's still in sexual ecstasy...

From far away, the back of her hand approaches his feet. There's a ring on its finger. It isn't a wedding one. In fact...

His briefs, ones that he's designed specifically to be worn under his suit, are metal-lined. Peter screams, as these seem to fly away, with him still wearing them.

They smack into the side of Ms. Sablinova's ring, and stick there. Peter hangs upside-down from her ring, in deathly suspense.

In goat steps, Ms. Sablinova sits up. She commands a bedside lamp, and with high-tech filament-generated light, it follows her orders. It hurts Peter's eyes, even more than Ms. Brant's candle did, as his Spidey sense adjusts to the light. She holds her ringed hand in front of her, and looks down upon little Peter.

He still hangs upside down from her ring, like a little mite. If he was in suspense before, he's terrified now.

"Hmm," Ms. Sablinova says, with a Slavic accent. "This is strange..." She smiles, and flaps her hair. "But...not ENTIRELY unlikeable..." She narrows her eyes. "Or LOVEABLE..."

Mere moments later, Peter, no bigger than a woman's fingernail, leaps from limb to limb. He's still too young to generate silk. He appears to be enjoying himself. One day, he'll have these limbs connected in a fine netting of freshly-generated silk...silk that make's Spider-Man's look last-century.

Flies will get caught in it. He won't need his beautiful captor to feed him anymore.

A glass bowl surrounds the wooden branch he now lives on. Through it, Ms. Sablinova, with blue eyes, peers inside. She watches the young Peter mature. She smiles on the inside, and moans happily on the outside.

She is Silver Sable. And she's rich...courtesy of the corporate successes of Silver Sable International.

"Crawl and climb, _malenki pauk_," she says, in a thick Slavic accent. "Soon your legacy will be a HELL of a lot more than Arachnida's gift to men...and women...with fly infestations...and not to mention TURK infestations..."


	31. Chapter 31

Outside the HQ tower of Silver Sable International, the city of Aniana hustles its bustle. Below, the employees of Silver Sable work hard, to create a better Symkaria today, and to make the next best addition to the Wild Pack.

In her penthouse, Silvija takes a nap. It strikes her employees as unusual, that she'd ever take any days off. Good thing, though; she usually works so hard, that she's virtually accumulated three years' worth of days off. Plus, she's merely there to INSPIRE her own company to work; most of her responsibilities are optional.

She sleeps topless. With a hand clutching her pussy, it seems she's VERY horny. This is rare. She hasn't been this horny since...Dr. Doom.

Atop her nipple, Peter shares her beauty sleep. He's hard for her. Every now and then, he rolls over on his back. Deviously, she uses one finger to bop him on the dick. At first, Peter woke up, when she did this. Alas, he's lost in a beautiful dream.

Sad; he once had this dream with Morgan Stark in it. Alas, he's so lost in his dream, he can't even suspect that Morgan's been lost down a villainous path...

* * *

All around, ostriches forage. Peter dreams that he and Silvija are somewhere in Africa...somewhere far from the monotonous concerns of life.

They're both normal-sized. In the background, the "morning" part of Amilcare Ponchielli's _Dance of the Hours_ plays. Peter and Silvija are both in ballet attire. They have this dance.

Incessantly, Peter spins around, like a top that doesn't know how to draw a line. At last, he starts to get dizzy, and staggers. As the music slows, he leans against a boulder, and rests.

From atop the boulder, a pair of klipspringers watch him. They seem underwhelmed...

As the music starts back up again, Silvija makes her entrance. She's been cast as the Silver Swan. She spins around in circles, too...moving as she goes along.

She dances over to Peter, deviously prances up behind him, and slaps him on the ass. He stands, shoots a web at her, snags her, reels her in, and embraces her. She lies in his arms, and spreads out hers. Above, like a dorsal fin, Peter spreads out his.

Around, the ostriches stare. No doubt, if Walt Disney had been born yet, they'd be inspiring him.

He moves around. Using him like a pole, she dances around him. They leap away from one another, flapping their hands like butterflies. They join hands, and dance here and there, in ballet baby steps.

She leaps over him, doing the splits as she does so. He chases her around. She mounts a male ostrich, and rides around. Peter mounts a female one, and chases her.

They slow, and face one another, still aback their birds. Like twin cobras facing each other off, they match one another, as they move about.

Their ostriches imitate swans, bow their necks, and caress beaks. They resemble two swans making the shape of a heart.

Still ostrich-back, they ride through the African countryside. Soon, a belt of short trees separate them. They play peek-a-boo with one another, through the gaps between the trees.

Exploiting gaps between the trees, they spontaneously switch places. They do this several times.

At the end of the belt, the ostriches start courting one another. Peter and Silvija flirt with one another, as this happens.

The ostriches run around, in an S-shaped motion, playfully. Doing gymnastics, Peter dismounts. Silvija spreads her arms, and leaps off her mount. Peter speeds beneath her, and catches her...ballet-style.

He lowers her. They embrace... They join hands again, and tip-toe/dance across the plain. Around them, other ostriches still watch...

Still dancing, they circle one another. They join hands again, and tip-toe/dance some more, in S-shaped movements.

She leaps again. He catches her. Light on his feet, he spins her around, while holding her up. He's Spider-Man; this isn't hard for him. He sets her down. They revolve around one another, and pause, victoriously...

From a clearing, a pair of cheetahs ambush them. They both run/dance, to evade them. They switch places with one another, as they run. So do the two cheetahs.

She slows, and leaps again. He catches them. Around them, the cheetahs surround them, and raise the hump and fur on their backs. Like a distorted helicopter rotor, Peter spins her here and there while holding her up. Indecisive, the cheetahs revolve around him...in perfect rhythm.

He sets her down. She kicks them both in the head. They both come back. She claps her hands. Painted wolves arrive, and chase the two cats away.

Now both surrounded by big rocks, they dance more. She dances in circles around him. He does gymnastics. He shoots webs, and ensnares her in them. He beds her in them, and cuddles up with her in them. She pushes him away, and dances/runs. He shoots webs, and swings from the rocks, chasing her.

He hangs upside down, from one of his silken threads. She rushes up to him, handles his hair in her hands, and caresses both sides of his face, alternating fingers for each side. She waves her hands in circular motions, over his chest muscles. She slaps him in the center of the chest, and runs off. At some point, she loses him.

He flips, and lands in front of her. She stops, and runs in the opposite direction. He sews up a fence, with his webbing, and traps her in with him.

In these hoops, they embrace. Her arms are spread out. One of his arms is raised, like a dorsal fin.

She leaps out of his embrace, and lands on a silken thread. Using this as a slingshot string, she leaps off it, and continues her flight when her feet hit bottom.

She stops, to behold a fancy web that Peter's just put up, between the rocks, high above her. Letters in it, like Charlotte's Web, say "PETER (heart symbol) SILVIJA."

From out of nowhere, one of Hawkeye's arrows flies. It spears the heart...right where a Valentine's Day heart would get the same shot from Cupid.

Silvija covers her mouth with both hands, and mimics a coy smile. She runs off. Peter leaps, shoots a web, and swings down towards her, from behind. He grabs her, and swings them both up to a bluff above the canyons.

Atop here, they finish the "morning" sequence of the _Dance of the Hours_. They orbit one another, and come up behind one another. They join arms, and create arches, as they dance around one another. They face one another blissfully, while doing so.

From above, some more klipspringers watch. High above, the sun moves closer and closer to the noon position...

To top it off, Silvija falls back, in one of Peter's arms. Peter holds her with one hand, and his other arm out. They maintain this position, until the "morning" part of the number commences.

Below, the ostriches have left. They...probably started fighting over a cornucopia full of fruit, in Peter's and Silvija's absences...


	32. Chapter 32

Atop Ms. Sablinova's nipple, Peter sleeps. He's still very hard. As the sun moves across the sky, just outside Ms. Sablinova's penthouse, he has another dream:

* * *

It's still in Africa. It's somewhere on a lake. It's the heat of the day. In the water, hippos lumber, and bask.

All around, there are wharfs. They weave around the water, in an intricate fashion.

Only Peter and Silvija are out here. Again, they're both normal-sized. And again, they're both in ballet attire; this stuff is more revealing, than the stuff they wore for the "morning" part of the number. It should be. On African lakes, it can get hot at midday. Between the wharfs, hippos and lake dolphins bask. Atop these wharfs, the "noon" part of the _Dance of the Hours_ commences.

In figure eights around one another, the two dance. For now, they share the same wharf. From above, the sun beats down on both of them. Neither would mind, about now, if Sunspot used his powers to make a sunspot around them, and shade them... Alas, the scene of noon must be maintained, for this part of the number...so both dancers just tough it out, with no mutants to cut them slack...or to fear or hate.

Peter shouldn't. In another reality, he teaches a class at Jean Grey's mutant school...

In S-shaped motions, Silvija dances forth, from here to there atop the wharf. Peter spins around, and follows her, in a straight line.

They join hands. Like a pendulum, Silvija swings herself around Peter, as if he were a rotor. Many times, she comes dangerously close to a monstrous hippo's surfaced nose.

They slow. Silvija leans back in Peter's arm, and spreads hers out. Peter holds out his, again, like a dorsal fin.

Gently, she stands. Above each other's heads, they join hands, with their joined arms raised. Like mirror images, they stare at one another, as they orbit one another. For this part, they go slowly...as the music is.

Beneath the surface, a hippo cow crawls under a bull's sets of legs, and lets him settle atop her.

As the music slows more, they back away from one another, circle one another...and curtsey, when the music stops. She takes off down a wharf, again. He follows her. They alternate, with S-shaped moves.

As she nearly runs off the end of each wharf, she skids, spins, and nearly falls into the drink backwards. Peter catches her, and holds her over the water, each time. In the shadows, waiting hippo eyes watch...

In circles, they dance around one another. Her skirt fans out, as she does. Many times, she nearly falls off one of the wharfs. He shoots out one of his webs, and snags her, just as she's about to go over.

She leaps over him several times, doing the splits while doing so. Tiring of this, Peter embraces her from behind, shoots out a web, and balloons into the sky, over the lake.

Below them, hippos stalk. Up here, they continue the "noon" part of the number.

From the balloon, he swings like a pendulum. They join hands. She swings beneath them, a tempting bait for the hippo bulls below.

Below, there's a floating island. Peter severs his link with the balloon, holds Silvija tight, and glides to the center of the island.

Up here, surrounded by hippos, the two of them continue the number. Dancing, he chases her through the many ravines atop this floating mass. She runs, leaps, and spreads her arms, as he catches her. He sets her down, on her feet, and they embrace, staring into another's eyes...

She sweeps her hand over his hair. She runs off, and they continue the number.

Going slowly, they orbit one another. They join hands, and back away from one another, stretching their arms out, like a tether...and reel each other back in, and keep it up.

He climbs atop him. He keeps spinning. She stretches out, getting higher as she goes along. He slows. They pause, in an awkward spot.

All around, the hippos' eyes are surfaced. They all seem confused.

They both stand on one leg, atop separate hippos' heads. They join hands, as the two hippos take them across the lake. He staggers a few times...but somehow, he always relaxes him, just as he's about to fall overboard.

Silvija's exhausted. Peter scoops her up in her arms, and takes her to a berth, sitting alone on the end of a wharf. There, she sets her down, and creeps away. Above, the sun is moving away from the "noon" position.

All around, the hippos swim away, breaching as they go along. The sun's gotten much lower in the sky, since this part of the number began...


End file.
